Multiple Patient Events and Mass Casualty Incidents Clinical Pathway — Emergency Department

Initial Notification

Decide what type of notification should be sent to staff outside of the ED

Quality/Content of Information	Example	Recommended Notification
Vague initial reports lacking details	A MVA with unknown number of injured A school bus accident	ED Standby Alert
Suspicion or concern for 3-7 seriously injured children	A single vehicle accident with multiple children involved A shooting with 3-7 injured children	Multiple Patient Event (MPE) Alert
High suspicion or concern for 8 or more seriously injured children	A school shooting with "many" victims Any active shooter in an environment with children	Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) Alert

This table should serve as a guideline. Other factors that contribute to decision-making include:

Trauma levels or injuries known?
Stabilized at OSH or not? Estimated arrival times relative to each other?
ED status: physician and nursing staffing, bed availability?
Time of day; weekday vs weekend?

If you have questions about any of the clinical pathways or about the process of creating a clinical pathway, please contact us.

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The clinical pathways are based upon publicly available medical evidence and/or a consensus of medical practitioners at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (“CHOP”) and are current at the time of publication. These clinical pathways are intended to be a guide for practitioners and may need to be adapted for each specific patient based on the practitioner’s professional judgment, consideration of any unique circumstances, the needs of each patient and their family, and/or the availability of various resources at the health care institution where the patient is located.

Accordingly, these clinical pathways are not intended to constitute medical advice or treatment, or to create a doctor-patient relationship between/among The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (“CHOP”), its physicians and the individual patients in question. CHOP does not represent or warrant that the clinical pathways are in every respect accurate or complete, or that one or more of them apply to a particular patient or medical condition. CHOP is not responsible for any errors or omissions in the clinical pathways, or for any outcomes a patient might experience where a clinician consulted one or more such pathways in connection with providing care for that patient.

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Multiple Patient Events and Mass Casualty Incidents Clinical Pathway — Emergency Department

Initial Notification

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Multiple Patient Events and Mass Casualty Incidents — Initial Notification — Clinical Pathway: Emergency Department

Multiple Patient Events and Mass Casualty Incidents Clinical Pathway — Emergency Department

Initial Notification