Laserfiche WebLink
Ramsey County │ Annex D: Public Health and Medical 15 <br />voluntary agreement among hospitals in the seven-county Minneapolis / Saint Paul metropolitan area to <br />provide mutual aid, including personnel, equipment, and supplies. Should patient care requirements <br />exceed available resources, immediate requests to MDH will be made for inter-regional and inter-state <br />transfer and a request made via RCEMHS to the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) for a federal <br />declaration of disaster and activation of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS). <br />3.5.2.5 Alternate Care Site (ACS) <br />An ACS provides basic patient care in a nontraditional health care setting during an ongoing emergency, <br />and supplements non-ambulatory patient care beds in proportion to the needs of the incident when all <br />hospital options are exhausted. <br />In the event that hospital surge capacity has been exceeded across the county, <br />the decision to open an ACS will be made by SPRCPH and RCEMHS in collaboration with the RHRC and <br />MDH. The site would be staffed by hospital personnel (through the Metropolitan Hospital Compact <br />Agreement) and augmented with MRC volunteers (through local public health), Community Emergency <br />Response Teams (CERTs) (through local jurisdictions), and in some situations, Federal Disaster Medical <br />Assistance Teams (DMATs). <br />Modular Emergency Medical System (MEMS) has been developed to provide a systematic, coordinated, <br />and effective medical response to the casualties of a large-scale incident, where the number of <br />casualties significantly overwhelms a community’s existing medical capabilities and/or involves an <br />outbreak of a disease. This modular system will establish non-hospital locations of medical care linked <br />to the local and regional healthcare and public health systems - which will oversee patient care, medical <br />logistics, and information flow. As hospitals reach full capacity, they can establish ACS in nearby <br />buildings to transfer and redirect non-ambulatory patients who require non- critical, supportive care and <br />cannot be accommodated in hospitals. <br />The RHRC will work closely with the ACS to triage appropriate patients to the facility. Patients who are <br />not eligible for admission to the ACS are those requiring mechanical ventilation, continuous <br />electrocardiography (EKG) monitoring, receiving vasopressors, requiring blood transfusions, requiring <br />hemodialysis, patients with existing diseases (cardiovascular disease [CVD], diabetes, cancer, etc.) who <br />are experiencing exacerbation concomitant with injury or infection, any Advance Cardiac Life Support <br />(ACLS), Advance Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Pediatric Advance Life Support (PALS), or Neonatal <br />Advance Life Support (NALS) interventions, and those patients in active labor. <br />3.5.2.6 Local, Regional, and State Coordination <br />A response to a public or environmental health emergency within Ramsey County will also be <br />coordinated with the MDH, local municipal environmental health agencies, and regionally as <br />appropriate. Resources may also need to be requested if local resources are exhausted. SPRCPH will <br />work with local, regional, and state public health partners to ensure effective implementation of the <br />response. Standard operating procedures for this coordination, including notification processes and <br />requesting mutual aid, can be found in the SPRCPH Response and Recovery Plan.