NM MEMS Framework

The New Mexico Modular Emergency Medical System (NM MEMS) Framework

Historical data suggest that the majority of incidents whether natural, accidental or humanmade and intentional, do not produce overwhelming medical or patient surge, nor damage health care facilities beyond usefulness. Typically, the resulting patient numbers are accommodated within the existing health care infrastructure using routine or normal patient flow protocols and care standards. However, in catastrophic incidents such as pandemic influenza or a strategic act of terror, an overwhelming number of people may seek care in an environment of depleted or possibly nonexistent resources.

To accommodate situations that result in a surge of patients that exceeds the capacity of existing resources, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) and its partners have developed the New Mexico Modular Emergency Medical System (NM MEMS). NM MEMS is the medical or patient surge response construct for local, regional, statewide and interstate emergency planning recommended by NMDOH. Although adapted from the original Modular Emergency Medical System model developed by the US Department of Defense in the late 1990s to respond to a release of a non-communicable biological agent, NM MEMS utilizes an all-hazard approach for medical or patient surge planning. This< NM MEMS Framework presents what the Department of Health and its system partners view to be the plan development model for medical response during an emergency or incident, one which creates overwhelming patient surge that existing and available resources and routine delivery systems are unable or inadequate to accommodate.

Utilization of the Modular Emergency Medical System as a medical surge response planning concept in New Mexico was first introduced and described in 2002 during initial NM DOH discussions regarding public and private sector health emergency preparedness planning. The New Mexico Modular Emergency Medical System (NM MEMS) medical surge response construct was further developed by staff and consultants from the New Mexico Department of Health, Bureau of Health Emergency Management over the last three years.

In February 2006, the New Mexico Department of Health, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety/Office of Emergency Management, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security, the New Mexico Emergency Managers Association (including Tribal Emergency Managers), and the Indian Health Service established the Unified Command to Prepare for Pandemic Influenza. The development of the NM MEMS Consultation Draft was a General Control Objective of the Unified Action Plan, which was endorsed by Governor Bill Richardson. Unified Command is a National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant approach to planning and response.

In summer 2007, a NMDOH BHEM Planning Committee representing state and local emergency management, emergency responders, public health and private sector health care system stakeholders participated in the creation of the NM MEMS Consultation Draft during a series of facilitated sessions where discussion of the model, core functions and assumptions led to this final version or Framework for broad stakeholder consideration and use. (See list of Contributors). The NM MEMS Framework development process provided an important opportunity for key stakeholders to gain a collective understanding of the response environment during a catastrophic incident and the application of the NM MEMS functions.

NMDOH worked with partners to develop NM MEMS to foster the understanding of and need for medical surge response planning by all local health and emergency management systems. The New Mexico Modular Emergency Medical System will be formalized as a response specific appendix to Annex 5: Health, Medical and Mortuary of the New Mexico State All-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan. As such, the NM MEMS Framework will inform local jurisdiction planning and the Department of Health Emergency Operations Plan, which guides the development and implementation of preparedness strategies and resource application. NM MEMS is managed according to the principles of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and is implemented locally through multi-agency coordination (MAC) of operations.

To assist local communities in developing a medical or patient surge response plan using NM MEMS, NMDOH is producing an Implementation Manual to accompany this NM MEMS Framework. The New Mexico Department of Health All Hazard Incident Management Glossary will be updated to define NM MEMS terms and will be part of the Implementation Manual. Tools to assist local medical surge response planning have been identified during the stakeholder NM MEMS development process and are being collected from other states and will also be included in the Implementation Manual.

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