Research

National reputation in emergency health care training


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The Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense (IHMD) is a CDC Center for Public Health Preparedness, comprised of faculty of the University of Georgia, Medical College of Georgia, and University of Texas, with the Director at UGA. The national reputation of this CDC Center, which has received over $2.2 million from DHHS over the last four years, has been well established through its development and exercising of an all-hazards medical curricula for treatment of mass casualties from chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological, and explosive (CBRNE) events.

The Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS), Basic Disaster Life Support (BDLS), and Core Disaster Life Support (CDLS) curricula were devised to provide hands-on, didactic, and different levels of CBRNE medical response training for a variety of health care occupational groups. Known as the National Disaster Life Support (NDLS) courses, they have been taught in over 43 states to over 40,000 medical personnel, starting before the 9-11 attacks until now. The American Medical Association (AMA) has selected the NDLS family of courses as its national standard for medical training nationwide, and has implemented a plan for its distribution in all 50 states. This national reputation has been a highly successful collaboration between UGA and MCG, with the Chair of Emergency Medicine and his department at MCG working closely together with the Director and UGA staff of IHMD.