One of the many lessons the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) learned after review of response activities from past disasters, especially those disasters experienced during the hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, is that the established procedures used for obtaining VA healthcare volunteers for response efforts became difficult to manage because the large number of the VA volunteers did not necessarily match the specific skill-types that were required for the particular mission. The VA has developed a concept, and consequently a requirement, for deployable National Emergency Medical Response Teams (NEMRTs) to be assigned for both internal and external medical response and recovery efforts to disasters and emergencies in support of the National Response Framework program.
Early this year, the VA implemented their National Emergency Medical Response Team (NEMRT) concept by bringing “on-line” three NEMRT groups. A typical NEMRT will be staffed by 250 VA volunteers with specific healthcare skill sets and will be mission-tasked to provide non-acute healthcare services in temporary field medical shelters for Veterans and the general populations within communities adversely affected by catastrophic events. The West Palm Beach VA Medical Center contributes nine staff members to this manpower pool.
The NEMRTs are a specific-typed resource and therefore will provide the VA with a more standardized and equitable response from all regions of the country in responding to disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, floods and earthquakes or events of national significance. Within each team, standard Federal resource typing will be applied and specialized teams are identified for specific missions such as mobile clinic support, facility repair, pharmacy, mental health, and field medical shelter staffing. West Palm Beach VA Medical Center has responded by providing staff members from Chaplain, Police, Mental Health, Social Work and Nursing services.
NEMRTs will be activated only by the VA Under Secretary for Health. Each NEMRT will cover designated on-call periods of time throughout the year (a 2-month deployment cycle) with the mandate to be deployed within 24 – 48 hours after notification and support federal response and recovery efforts. Each NEMRT will be capable of deploying for 14-day rotational periods. These teams represent one of the VA’s resources to support the Fourth Mission of the VA – National Emergency Preparedness and are rapidly becoming a valued asset within both the VA and state /local emergency management communities.
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