What Is The Role Of A DMAT In A Disaster?
DMATs deploy to disaster sites with sufficient supplies and equipment to sustain themselves for a period of 72 hours while providing medical care at a fixed or temporary medical care site. In mass casualty incidents, their responsibilities include triaging patients, providing austere medical care, and preparing patients for evacuation. In other types of situations, DMATs may provide primary health care and/or may serve to augment overloaded local health care staffs. Under the rare circumstance that disaster victims are evacuated to a different locale to receive definitive medical care, DMATs may be activated to support patient reception and disposition of patients to hospitals. DMATs are designed to be a rapid-response element to supplement local medical care until other Federal or contract resources can be mobilized, or the situation is resolved. DMATs are categorized according to their ability to respond. A Type-1 DMAT can be ready to deploy within 6 hours of notification and then remain self-sufficient for 72 hours with enough food, water, shelter and medical supplies to treat about 200 patients per day. Type-2 DMATs lack enough equipment to make them self-sufficient but are able to deploy and replace a Type-1 team utilizing and supplementing their equipment which is left on site. Type-3 DMATs consist of teams in various stages of development.