Portland VA Medical Center Will Participate in National Level Exercise

Hospitals will receive or simulate the actual reception of patients based on the individual hospital exercise requirements.

Portland, Oregon's VA Medical Center Photo courtesy: 1.va.gov

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The Portland VA Medical Center is participating in the National Level Exercise 2 – 08 (NLE2- 08) as the Federal Coordinating Center for the National Disaster Medical Center on Tuesday, May 6th.

The Portland exercise will be part of a multiple exercise event in various parts of the country that will not specifically affect the Portland area, but will impact the national level response.

NLE02-08 is an exercise involving numerous chemical terrorist attacks in the Seattle area that will cause the activation of the Catastrophic Incident Supplement of the National Response Framework.

The purpose of this Full-Scale Field Exercise is to assess the Portland Area National Disaster Medical System's (NDMS) Patient Reception Plan in support of the Ultimate Caduceus Exercise, the patient evacuation portion of NLE2 – 08.

The Portland Area NDMS Patient Reception Plan will be activated to receive patients at the Portland Air National Guard Base.

The Multnomah County EMS Mass Casualty Incident Plan is used as the mechanism to receive and triage casualties.

For this exercise the NDMS Tennesse-1 DMAT will be used to assist in patient reception operations. The OR-2 DMAT equipment cache will be used by the TN-1 team and OR-2 team members will assist in providing logistical support.

Area hospitals will activate their Surge Plans and report bed availability based on their maximum surge plan estimates.

Hospitals will receive or simulate the actual reception of patients based on the individual hospital exercise requirements.

Source: Portland VA Medical Center