More than two years after Sars-CoV-2 (COVID-19) was first detected, aid organizations continue to battle the pandemic worldwide. The virus has taken more than five million lives to date, with the U.S. death toll reaching more than 900,000 earlier this month.
Throughout the pandemic, contracted federal clinicians have been deployed by the Office for the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) through the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to assist in treatment and vaccination efforts across the country. These healthcare workers have played a crucial role in the U.S. pandemic response.
Since the beginning of the crisis, FEI Systems has provided ongoing operational and maintenance support of key NDMS systems to provide emergency health and human services to U.S. citizens. As a health IT company committed to assisting in the quality delivery of health and human services to vulnerable populations, we proudly continue to support pandemic treatment and recovery efforts by the ASPR and NDMS.
The National Disaster Medical System and COVID-19
The NDMS is the response and preparedness division for medical response of the ASPR for unplanned national emergencies, like hurricane, flooding and earthquake relief, etc. and during planned national security special events such as presidential state visits, the United Nations General Assembly and Fourth of July celebrations, to name a few. The physicians, nurses, EMS responders, mental health specialists and psychologists, respiratory therapists and other clinicians who work with the NDMS come from across the country and have provided much-needed relief to populations victimized by natural disasters and disease outbreaks.
From the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic,
NDMS responders and members of the commissioned corps of the United States Public Health Service were assisting with care of quarantined cruise ship passengers and those evacuated from Wuhan, China. As the months went on, NDMS Responders continued to be deployed across the country such as the regions hardest hit by the pandemic, from Navajo reservations, Arizona, California to New York State. When it came time for vaccine distribution in early 2021, the NDMS workforce provided assistance to rural populations in states and tribal areas.
FEI Systems, a Trusted Partner
Because of the unknown nature of disasters, the NDMS relies on technical support services that are available – even at surge levels – at a moment’s notice. FEI Systems has built capabilities to support NDMS during response surges by standing up teams to support emergency events very quickly. We have significantly increased the team size at very short notice to ensure seamless support for NDMS and their providers throughout our partnership with them.
For the first 15 months of the pandemic, FEI provided around-the-clock operational and maintenance support for four NDMS applications. Our experts were available 24/7 to assist with planning and response, including responder availability, rostering, deployment, accountability, finance, and reporting functions within these software applications.
For the last 10 years, we have provided ongoing health information technology (IT) development and design, technical support, and training for the NDMS, including its electronic medical record (EMR) system. Notably, we have assisted in the delivery of care during major disasters, such as hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. Our latest enhancements to NDMS systems allow for a robust, secure, and nimble system and allow NDMS employees to perform all operational business from mobile devices using open source technologies Additionally, the NDMS Responder Management System (RMS), developed by FEI Systems, plays a pivotal role in maintaining an up-to-date list of qualified and credentialed federal first responders to be deployed in the event of a disaster. Although the programmatic support for the credentialing of NDMS Responders has moved in-house, FEI continues to provide application technical system support to NDMS in credentialing to verify that the clinicians placed on deployment rosters are accurately credentialed transparently tracked, and easily managed to meet the needs of the emergency at hand.
