Incident Command for EMS

This session is designed to help Prehospital Care Practitioners, Firefighters and other participants manage EMS incidents involving Mass Casualties using the Incident Command System (ICS). A Mass Casualty Incident is best described as an incident that places excessive demands on EMS personnel, equipment and the EMS system. Some EMS Practitioners refer to this as Chaos.

We will learn about Mass Casualty Incidents that include Apartment and Highrise fires, Acts of Gang Violence, Motor Vehicle Collisions and School Shootings. Mass Casualty events can occur anywhere including concerts, sporting events, parades, holiday celebrations, music festivals, protest & spring break.

During this session we will learn the Incident Command System for EMS and discuss the Unified Command System. We will take a look at the different roles of responders and how working together can help manage incidents with less confusion, stress and problems. We will demonstrate that ICS can work for both small and large incidents.

We will review setting up EMS sectors including Triage, Treatment, Transport and Staging, will discuss the use of Triage Tags, Tarps & Ribbons and will discuss reunification.

At the end of the session, hopefully you will be better prepared to “Organize Chaos”.