MACSIM ®

The risk for, and incident of, situations where the immediate need of medical care exceeds available resources – major incidents or disasters – has significantly increased during the last decades and continues to increase, parallel to the technical and political development in the world. The goal for our health care system is to - as far as possible - eliminate or reduce loss of life and health as well as physical and psychological suffering consequent to such situations. This requires:

• A prepared organisation for mobilisation and optimal utilization of resources

• Simplified methods when access to the technology used in modern medical care is insufficient or non-existing

• Knowledge and skills added to those needed for routine medical care:

- Decisions with regard to priority between patients and between treatments when the needs far exceeds available resources

- Use of simplified methods for diagnosis and treatment

- Primary management of injuries outside our own specialties

- Management of back-up and reserve systems if/when technology fails

- Knowledge of the alert-and response process in which we have to work as an integrated part

With regard to the last point, education and training is in fact even more important than planning and equipment- a good plan and expensive equipment is of limited value if we do not know about it, or how to use it.