Health & Medical Task Force: ASPR Supports the State of Maryland

The following is a text alternative description for the Health and Medical Task Force: ASPR Supports the State of Maryland.

[The video begins with the title of the video, Health & Medical Task Force: ASPR Supports the State of Maryland, and the image of a National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) team member using duct tape seal the opening at the wrist of another team member’s personal protection equipment. In first half of the video, a clip from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s April 2020 press conferences is shown followed by soundbites from interviews with two NDMS team members and a member of the Maryland Army National Guard. This segment highlights images from ASPRs response efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.]

Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD): The other major issue we continue to confront are outbreaks or [COVID-19] clusters of cases at 278 different facilities (licensed in Maryland) across the state including 4,011 confirmed cases at 143 different Maryland nursing homes. These outbreaks account for 19 percent of all the total positive cases in our state but shockingly 46 percent of the deaths in Maryland are patients from nursing homes. We have augmented our Maryland strike teams with three disaster medical assistance teams. These elite teams bring many years of disaster relief experience.

William Devir, Task Force Commander, NDMS: We were invited by the state of Maryland through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to come in and provide some expertise their fight against COVID-19 within nursing homes.

Col. Eric Allely, State Surgeon, Maryland Army National Guard: We’re supporting the Maryland Department of Health so what we’ve been focusing on here in Maryland is taking care of the people who are at increased risk but are in small communities where they can’t move very easily.

William Devir, Task Force Commander, NDMS: These have been areas where some of the patients have been the most vulnerable and we’ve seen some of the highest death rates. So what we bring to the table in with the National Guard, Emergency Medical Services, the Department of Health is that we have certain degree of expertise with COVID-19. A lot of our personnel have already been in the field working with these patients, evacuating these patients, providing isolation techniques. And, we’ve had a lot of in-depth training that we’ve done in combination with the experts at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Edie Lindberg, Nurse Practitioner, NDMS: We’re headed out to the nursing facility to take a look at their staffing and their infection control practices give them some resources to use so that they can continue to make improvements and continue to provide safe care for the patients.

[The video continues with a NDMS response team at an Assisted Living Facility in the Maryland Capital Region where a HMTF Briefing was in-progress. Featured are soundbites from the nursing facility’s staff and members of the NDMS and DMAT teams as they prepare to enter dressed in PPE and assess the situation of the facility.]

Dawn DeMarza, RN, NDMS: We just had a briefing for the facility and we’re gonna go in gowned-up and assess the situation.

Crow, NDMS: Okay… you wanna check? [NDMS team member Crow seals another team members PPE with duct tape.]

Carl Mangum, Team Commander, NDMS: We’re here where the Maryland National Guard today and we’re here helping the state of Maryland. Today, we’re actually here to assess one of the small nursing homes in the state. We’re here to look at the usage of PPE and look at their isolation procedures and to do a quick assessment on some of their patients. We’re here just to help with the COVID-19 outbreak. We’re glad to be here.

On the Phone - Carl Mangum, DMAT Delta-1: We’ve been inside inspecting the facility, looking at their isolation procedures for their COVID-positive patients and for the residents that are not COVID-positive patients. Between us and the Maryland National Guard, we’ve done a complete assessment of the place and offered a few suggestions for them and they’ve been very thankful for us to be able to come and assess them and give them some ideas.

Ruthie Fishman, Director of Operations, Assisted Living Facility: We’re not used to having groups come in to help us. It was very helpful to have a group that was coming in that very much felt like it was to benefit us as opposed to critique us. They came with a variety of backgrounds and shared with us insight from their experience in their own areas of expertise and helped us to think through the different processes that we’re doing and what could be improved, what we were doing well and they were very, very helpful in a number of areas.

[The video ends with the ASPR logo and four pillars along with the byline “Saving Lives. Protecting Americans.”]