On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:10:33 GMT, robert casey wrote:

Can any ham inside or outside an emergency area handle all
the various items contained in that initial messaging with any ease
AND accuracy? Probably not.

Medical workers IN an emergency area will want to talk to medical
workers outside of the area, directly to avoid any mistakes in requests
for supplies or other medical aid. They can talk "medical."

If such came up, the ham would give the doctor the mic and let
him talk directly. To another doctor at another ham shack
using the mic there. THis doesn't happen very often. and
thinking about it much borders on fantasy. But the FCC
says do whatever helps in an emergency.

We do that ROUTINELY in our quarterly hospital communication drills,
where all intra- and inter-hospital communications (800 MHz systems)
go down for an hour and the only comms are via ham radio (locally
2-m voice, 2-m packet, and 3/4-m SSTV). JACO (or whatever the
acronym is - the hospital accreditation agency) now requires all
hospitals to have backup communications by ham radio installed
in the EOC or the ER or both (we have it in both) with licensed
personnel on call, either on staff or volunteers, as a condition of
continuing accreditation- at least here in the Pacific Northwest.

My "regular" volunteer assignment is as the voice operator for the
inter-hospital net at the local (major) Med Center and we have
facilities for having medical personnel talk "medical" to other
medical personnel. Most of the traffic, though, is status info -
reports of beds occupied/available, resources needed, etc. Anything
of a record nature goes by packet. Graphics go by SSTV.

We've had two "live" events where the hospital was taken off the
electric grid because of maintenance on the latter, and we stood
standby watch for two 8-hour shifts. Fortunately nothing adverse
happened, but we were ready and able to take over on a minute's
notice.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon