Hospital Emergency Response Teams (HERT) is comprised of multi disciplines and specialties that activate and respond during emergencies. They are often the primary hospital defense and preliminary medical care provider for patients arriving from an MCI prior to entry into and through the ED.
HERT team are also utilized by the Hawaii Healthcare Emergency Management Coalition as a staffing resource to assist other facilities with meeting critical shortages or augment to meet medical surge needs. This resource pool would consists additional credentialed personnel. HERT personnel may come from all provider types.
HERT Mission:
To protect the hospital while transferring patients into the facility for medical treatment
Accomplished by securing the hospital grounds, identifying patients, separating and prioritizing patients by needs, decontaminating those patients, and protecting caregivers from becoming victims
HERT Roles:
Selected individuals from the Medical Care Branch, Hazardous Material Branch, and Security Branch
HERT Team Leader – Leadership and coordination
Safety Officer
Security Unit
–Access Control Unit
–Crowd Control
–Traffic Control
Casualty Care Unit
–Patient registration
–Triage
–Treatment
Victim Decontamination unit
Other Support Groups:
Law Enforcement
Maintenance Team
PIO
Social Services (Family Assistance)
Hospital HAZMAT Team
Responsibilities:
Perform specified functions
–security for the hospital facility and grounds,
–registration, pt. tracking, triage, treatment, decontamination, detection & monitoring,
–and movement of patients into the facility or on to other definitive medical care.
