Utility and timeliness of a pharmaceutical mass casualty incident cart

Abstract Introduction: Disasters present unique situations where there are more patients than resources. In these mass casualty incidents (MCIs), the need for additional medications is often paramount. Stockpiles of materials that can be easily deployed in times of need have been proposed for these events. Our objective was to develop a pharmacy stockpile that can be rapidly deployed to the emergency department (ED) in times of critical need. Materials and Methods: The hospital Emergency Preparedness committee reviewed the institution’s latest hazard vulnerability analysis and determined which pharmaceutical agents would be of greatest importance in four high likelihood scenarios: traumatic/burn, chemical, radiologic, and infectious. Two medication carts stocked with pharmaceutical supplies to treat at least 9 critical patients were created and stored in the pharmacy. The Emergency Preparedness committee set a 30-min goal for the stockpile to reach the ED from the time an MCI was activated. A no-notice MCI drill was conducted, where the ED was expecting a bolus of fire burn victims. The MCI notification system was activated and time to deployment of carts was measured. Results: It took 21 min and 12 s to deploy the two disaster carts to the ED. Conclusion: Multiple disasters have shown the importance of medication access during critical events. The carts described can be valuable in situations where there is a rapid influx of patients. Our carts were designed by a multidisciplinary team for events likely to occur at a public inner city hospital. Other teams can create disaster carts, based on their needs. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Systems-Based Practice.