Hackensack hospital adding a trauma unit on wheels

[S Schecter]

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  Wednesday, November 29, 2006

By BOB GROVES
STAFF WRITER

 North Jersey will soon have the nation's first truly mobile emergency
trauma unit -- a hospital on wheels with an operating room, seven beds, a
surgical team, nurses and therapists.

By late next year, victims of catastrophes or terrorist attacks in the metro
area may not need to take an ambulance to the emergency room. Instead,
Hackensack University Medical Center will come directly to them.

Hackensack has received $3.2 million in federal funding to produce the unit,
which will have the navigability of an RV on crowded city streets.

The vehicle will be about the size of a FedEx truck. It will have walls that
expand it to the size of a double-wide mobile home and additional modular
units that house a communications center and a toxic substances testing
laboratory.

"Our goals are to improve outcomes and minimize loss of life from terrorism
and natural disasters," said Dr. Joseph Feldman, chairman of the
Emergency/Trauma Department at Hackensack.

  *ER for house calls*
------------------------------

Hackensack University Medical Center's $3.2 million Mobile Emergency Trauma
Department will include:

•  43-foot truck with expandable sides

•  Portable operating room

•  Seven critical-care beds

•  Digital X-ray

•  Portable field laboratory

•  A small pharmacy

•  Telemetric medicine system

•  Mass casualty and biological incident response support vehicles

Source: HUMC

Hackensack's new emergency trauma unit will be "deployable to any mass
casualty event" in the tri-state area, Feldman said Tuesday during a press
conference at the hospital.

In a disaster, it will be able to maneuver through "densely populated,
debris-filled urban areas," Feldman said.

This will make it superior to a much larger mobile trauma unit operated by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Feldman said. That FEMA vehicle is
as cumbersome as a tractor-trailer truck, which hampered it from navigating
the wake of Hurricane Katrina last year, he said.

Rep. Steve Rothman, a Fair Lawn Democrat who helped obtain the federal
funding, stressed that Hackensack's rolling operating room "is a portable
facility" for a highly dangerous region.

"We're delighted to come up with the money to provide a response to
biological, chemical or radioactive incidents," said Rothman, a member of
the House Appropriations Committee.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, said 9/11 taught
everybody in the metro area a lesson.

"We know life has changed," said Lautenberg, who along with fellow Democrat
Sen. Robert Menendez, help procure the Hackensack mobile unit funding.

"One of the worst things is not to be able to get to a place we have to be
when an emergency happens," he said. "This unit will get to the scene in a
hurry. This mini-hospital can make the difference between life or death. It
will bring an emergency room and acute care people need."

The modular vehicle will be operated by members of the hospital's disaster
preparedness team, and additional people who will be hired for the job,
Feldman said.

The additional unit, however, will not shortchange staffing at Hackensack's
emergency department, which handles 90,000 patients per year, he said.

E-mail: groves at northjersey.com