Analysis of Military–Civilian Patient Handoff at Vista Forge Multi-Agency Nuclear Disaster Exercise 2022.

This article evaluates the handoff process between military assets and civilian emergency medical services (EMS) during Vista Forge 2022, a multi-agency full-scale disaster exercise simulating a nuclear detonation in an urban area. The Beth Israel Deaconess Fellowship in Disaster Medicine (BIDMF) observed that verbal communication between military and civilian responders was generally absent, and triage tags used were generic military forms lacking radiation-specific information, with some data washed off during decontamination. Variability in medical capabilities among military decontamination teams and unclear protocols for transferring patient information to civilian EMS were noted. The authors recommend developing standardized handoff procedures, improving triage tag design to include radiation exposure details, and enhancing coordination between military and civilian responders for future mass casualty events.