Making Space to Save Lives: A Critical Role for the Hospitalist During Mass Casualty Incidents.

OBJECTIVE: An effective hospital response to mass casualty incidents (MCIs) requires rapid mobilization of personnel capable of caring for critically ill trauma patients and availability of resuscitation resources. METHODS: Hospitals facing an MCI wrestle with the challenge of immediately adjusting their overextended clinical operations to resuscitate a large number of rapidly arriving patients without compromising the care of existing patients. RESULTS: Hospitalists are well positioned to add significant value by off-loading the emergency department (ED) given their broad clinical expertise. We describe our institution's protocol to generate immediate and sustained surge capacity by integrating our hospitalist service into MCI response. CONCLUSIONS: Our protocol details the safe and rapid transfer of care of existing ED patients to hospitalist teams to make ED staff and space available to care for incoming MCI patients.