ABSTRACT
The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) was created in the early 1980's, and it was designed to meet the threats of the time. Today the threats are much less discreet and predictable. They are distributed; they move and spread quickly; and they walk silently among us. Specifically, biological agents are an enemy unlike any we have had to deal with before. They offer unique challenges that fly in the face of current doctrine. We must redesign the NDMS in order to contain and eliminate this new threat. Tools exist today capable of effectively coordinating distributed resources--even through containment borders. We need to strengthen our public health system, create a net-centric disaster management system, and blur the boundaries between local and federal resources. Ultimately we must move from an incremental, echelon-based response to an immediate, continuous response. This can be accomplished by adding inexpensive, well-established information technologies to the existing response system.
