‘HERT’ Course spotlighted on website of national publication

The Center for Domestic Preparedness’ (CDP’s) Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents (HERT) Course is currently featured on the website of a national publication.

Erin Valentine, an emergency manager at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, and a CDP alum, highlighted the HERT course in an article she authored for the Domestic Preparedness Journal, a monthly publication which features developments in emergency preparedness and disaster response. The article is titled “Hospital Response -- A Personal Training Experience” and is listed among the website’s collection of ‘Latest Articles.’

Valentine explains how the three-day offering teaches healthcare responders about the Hospital Incident Command System and how to operate an emergency site and treat patients of a mass casualty incident who’ve been contaminated with chemicals or other hazardous materials.  

She goes on to say, in her first-person account of the course, that while the classroom portion of the training “… provided an almost overwhelming amount of theoretical knowledge,” the hands-on portion “… made that knowledge real, understandable, and applicable.

“The simulation (during the hands-on portion) was so realistic, so demanding, and so genuinely stressful that it created a dramatic shift in my perspective as a hospital emergency manager,” she adds.

HERT is one of the CDP’s most popular courses. In a typical year, the CDP offers the course 25 to 30 times and it is attended by about 1,000 responders.