The Bellevue Fire Department appreciates the opportunity to participate in this important drill to test community preparedness in handling multiple patients with infectious diseases and looks forward to taking the lessons learned back to improve their skills and be better prepared for future events, should they occur.
One of the major points of this drill is to test the capabilities of all agencies involved to care for, and transport, multiple infectious disease patients to UNMC’s Biocontainment Unit. Omaha Fire and Bellevue Fire have mutual aid agreements in place that allow the department's to work together when specialized resources are needed in certain cases, as would be the case if multiple infectious disease patients required simultaneous transport. Omaha Fire and Bellevue Fire have the same capabilities to transport those patients, and this is the first opportunity they have had to utilize that training and those resources collectively.
Bellevue Fire will have a medic unit and two firefighter paramedics participating in this drill. Both personnel participating from BFD have been specially trained in donning and doffing the specialized personal protective equipment necessary to care for and transport patients with highly infectious diseases. In addition, Bellevue Fire has a very specific set of treatment protocols which apply to those infectious disease patients that they will be operating under for this simulated patient care event.
https://nebraskaradionetwork.com/2016/11/17/drill-to-test-infectious-disease-patients-at-nebraska-medicine/