It's human nature to want to help when a disaster hits. However, "helping" may not always be helpful. Helping may actually be detrimental to the cause and place personnel at undue risk. At Johns Hopkins, we have a long-standing multidisciplinary response team and a system in place to determine whether sending a response team following a disaster is appropriate.
The Johns Hopkins Go Team, which is part of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, is a multidisciplinary medical team that can rapidly deploy to areas of crisis following a natural or man-made disaster. The team is made up of about 200 health care workers from disciplines across Johns Hopkins Medicine. Members undergo specialized training to allow them to activate and be effective response agents during specific times of need.
In the event of a disaster, the Go Team would be prepared to respond quickly if Johns Hopkins receives a request from a state or federal agency or other official entity, and has the approval from Johns Hopkins Medicine leadership and CEPAR.
Go to the CEPAR website for more stories from the Hopkins on Alert newsletter, where this article first appeared.
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