Improving global prehospital and emergency medicine, public health, and disaster health care and preparedness

New Articles from Prehospital and Disaster Medicine (PDM)

Redesigning Prehospital Care: Fiji’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
In response to a surge of COVID-19 during a four-month period in Fiji in 2021, the first Pre-hospital Emergency Care Coordination Centre (PHECCC) was created in the capital Suva. Using a multi-agency tiered workforce to bridge the gaps between home care, the national referral hospital, and smaller health facilities, the PHECCC changed the way emergency care was accessed and delivered. Access was via a toll-free number whereby the public could receive a telephone consultation followed by clinical advice and dispatch of an ambulance for a home assessment when required.

An article recently published in PDM describes the setup and operations of the PHECCC and presents the first prehospital dataset for Fiji. Read more…

Factors Associated with the Number of Injured and Fatalities in Motor Vehicle Intentional Mass-Casualty Incidents: A Timely Aid for Scaling the Emergency Response
Intentional Mass Casualty Incidents (IMCIs) involving motor vehicles (MVs) as weapons represent a growing trend in Western countries. A new study published in PDM identifies the factors associated with the number of casualties during the initial phase of MV-IMCIs.

Data was obtained from three different sources: Targeted Automobile Ramming Mass Casualty attacks (TARMAC) Attack Database, Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and Vehicle-ramming attack (Wikipedia). Jacobs’ formula was used to estimate the population density in the vehicle’s route. The primary outcome variables were the total number of casualties (injured and fatalities). Read more…


Ethical Decision Making in Disaster and Emergency Management: A Systematic Review of the Literature

WADEM · PDM Podcast #21 – Ethical Decision Making in Disaster and Emergency Management

Joe Cuthbertson drops by the PDM podcast series to discuss his article “Ethical Decision Making in Disaster and Emergency Management: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” which was published in the October 2023 issue of PDM. The open-access article can be accessed here – doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X23006325. Many thanks to Don Donahue for moderating!

Recorded – 19 December 2023


The 2023 Model Core Content of Disaster Medicine

WADEM · PDM Podcast #20 – The 2023 Model Core Content of Disaster Medicine

Dr. Bryan Wexler joins the podcast series to discuss his article “The 2023 Model Core Content of Disaster Medicine,” which was published in the December 2023 issue of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. The full-text, open-access article can be accessed here – doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X23006556. Special thanks to Joe Cuthbertson for moderating!

Recorded – 11 December 2023