What is Disaster Medical Assistance Team Kentucky – One (DMAT KY – 1)?

The KY-1 DMAT is a volunteer team organized under the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) through the U.S. Public Health Service to provide emergency medical care and to augment local medical capabilities during times of disaster. As of 2003, teams are part of the US Department of Homeland Security. DMAT KY-1 is sponsored by the St. Luke Hospitals, of Fort Thomas, Kentucky. The team’s responsibilities include triaging patients, providing austere medical care, and preparing patients for evacuation. In some situations DMATs may provide primary health care and/or may serve to augment overloaded local health care staffs. Under the rare circumstance that disaster victims are evacuated to a different locale to receive definitive medical care, DMATs may be activated to support patient reception and disposition of patients to hospitals. DMATs are designed to be a rapid-response element to supplement local medical care until other Federal or contract resources can be mobilized, or the situation is resolved.

Staff and Organization

DMAT KY-1 is composed of medical professionals and support staff organized, trained and prepared to activate as a unit to provide medical and health care to disaster victims. As a Level I DMAT, we are self-sufficient, able to respond to a departure point within 8 hours, self-deployable within 500 miles of the departure point, and capable of sustaining 24-hour operations for a period of 72 hours.

Our team has over 100 members. Most are medical professionals: physicians (usually specializing in emergency room, trauma or surgery), physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, paramedics, EMTs. We have specialists such as dentists, respiratory therapists and mental health practitioners. We also have non-medical personnel in administration, clerical, logistics, communications, and food services.

We are organized along a standard Incident Command System (ICS) structure: we have operations, logistics, plans, and administration/finance sections, and separate safety and public information functions. Many team members cross-train in several functions in order to become more valuable assets to the team.

DMATs are initially organized as non-federal volunteers. However, DMAT members are pre-enrolled as Department of Homeland Security employees and, when activated by NDMS for service either within or out of state, become federalized and receive a salary commensurate with their assigned general services rating.

DMAT KY-1 has been deployed to numerous disasters in many locations around the world, including Florida, New York, Hawaii, Utah, Georgia, the Virgin Islands and Guam where we responded to disasters or provided support operations for special events. Click here to learn more about our deployment history.

Click here if you are interested in learning more about volunteering and what is required to become a member of DMAT KY-1.

You can learn more about DMATs and NDMS at www.ndms.dhhs.gov