INTEROPERABILITY WORKSHOP
HAMBURG, 10 – 12 March 2010
MINUTES
1.
Participants
Ms. Claudia Bahl (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Mr. Christoph Balschat (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Mr. Edwin Benko (Government of Styria, Austria)
Mr. Thomas Böhme (Company Weinmann, Germany)
Mrs. Zora Bruchacova, MD (Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic)
Ms. Alexandra Dammann (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Dr. Dimitrios Efthymiadis (Aero‐medical Evacuations Office, Greece)
Ms. Rut Erdelyiova (Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic)
Ms. Andrea Gerriets (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Dr. Andreas Grove (Joint Medical Forces Command, Germany)
Harald Halpick (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Harm Bastian Harms (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Dr. Alois Hirschmugl (Consultant, Austria)
Karl Anton Kähler (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Wolfgang Krajic (Consultant, Slovenia)
Dr. Karsten Chr. Lindenstromberg (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Fredrika Lindholm (The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency MSB, Sweden)
Stefan Lob (European Aero‐Medical Institute, Germany)
Sabine Lurz (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Dr. Michael Meyer (German Automobile Association ADAC, Germany)
Manfred Mohr (Deutsche Lufthansa Aga, Germany)
Dr. Wolfgang Pramendorfer (Emergency doctor, Austria)
Demetrios Pyrros, MD, EMDM (World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medecine)
Josef Riener (Samaritan Austria)
Friedrich W. Riechmann (The Johanniter International Assistance)
Dr. Marcel Sedlacko (Samaritan Slovakia)
Bastian Solke (The Johanniter International Assistance, Germany)
Dr. Robert Spiegel (UNDAC Austria)
Wolfgang Strahl (The Johanniter International Assistance,Germany)
Denitza Tchavdarova (European Commission)
Nils Uhlenbrock (Federal Agency for Technical Relief THW, Germany)
2.
Agenda
10 March 2010 Arrival of the participants and Welcome Meeting
11 March 2010 Presentations by various workshop participants and working groups:
1) EURAMET personnel, training, exercise and equipment
2) EURAMET deployment and legal aspects
3) EURAMET tactics, cooperation with partners and arrangements for follow‐on
transport
12 March 2010 Presentation of the results of the working groups
The detailed schedule is attached.
3.
Aim
of
the
workshop
The aim of the EURAMET Interoperability Workshop was to bring together project partners, steering
committee members, as well as experts for aerial medical transport/evacuation in order to discuss
best practice, the necessary personnel, training and common equipment for EURAMET missions,
possibilities for closer cooperation with other air medical evacuation teams in the different Member
States as well as possible cooperation with a major European airline, private air ambulances and
other international key players in the field. Additionally, legal aspects of EURAMET missions were to
be discussed. The results of the workshop are therefore foreseen to influence the further
development of the project and to contribute to the “Standard Operating Procedures” for EURAMET
missions which will be written down for future implementation.
4.
Welcome
The EURAMET Project Manager Harm Bastian Harms welcomed the participants of the workshop. In
order to create a consistent working level, the assistant project manager Claudia Bahl presented the
EURAMET project, its cooperating partners, objective, milestones as well as the organizational
structure of the project. The presentation is attached.
5.
Presentations
by
workshop
participants
Short introductions into their work and experiences in the field of aero‐medical evacuation and
transport were given by the following speakers:
Edwin Benko (Government of Styria, Austria)
Wolfgang Strahl (Johanniter International Assistance Cologne, Germany) Dr. Dimitrios Efthymiadis (Aero‐Medical Evacuations Office, Greece) Dr. Andreas Grove (Joint Medical Forces Command, Germany)
Dr. Michael Meyer (German Automobile Association ADAC, Germany) Manfred Mohr (Deutsche Lufthansa Aga, Germany)
Nils Uhlenbrock (Federal Agency for Technical Relief THW, Germany)
The seven presentations are attached.
6.
Working
groups
According to the objectives of the workshop, the participants split into three working groups: 1)
EURAMET personnel, training, exercise and equipment; 2) EURAMET deployment and legal aspects;
3) EURAMET tactics, cooperation with partners and arrangements for follow‐on transport.
The detailed participants list is attached.
Each group had to prepare a final presentation which was the basis for an open discussion among the
participants. These presentations are attached.
6.1
Working group (1): EURAMET personnel, training, exercise and equipment
Personnel
The group discussed the preliminary team structure given in the project proposal concerning e.g.
what team functions are definitely needed; whether an advance team shall be established; which
basic and special qualification the core team and the rest of the team must have; how the
recruitment and roster of the personnel shall be organized and what kind of redundancy is needed
for each of the core functions.
They agreed to change the planned team structure into the following:
1 EURAMET Team Leader
1 Deputy EURAMET Team Leader (MD)
2 Medical Doctors
2 Experts for Psychosocial Care
4 Paramedics 1 Logistician ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ 1 Media Person 2 Airport Logisticians (1 Medical Technician)
The Deputy EURAMET Team Leader, 2 Paramedics and 1 Logistician are foreseen to form the pre‐
team which will be sent out day in advance to prepare the EURAMET mission.
Concerning basic needs and qualifications as requirements for choosing the personnel, the group
stressed the need of language skills, especially a working level of English, life experience and physical
fitness. The question of a minimum age was addressed and it was pointed out that gender balance
will be aspired in the team as well as preferably a balance of medical specializations.
Training
The EURAMET team members don’t have to be trained on their profession but to be prepared for the
mission. It was proposed to have
‐ one 5‐day Basic Training course on safety and security issues;
‐ one special EURAMET Training aiming at team building and dealing e.g. with legal issues of
the deployment, theory of flight medicine and stress management;
‐ as well as one Advanced Training on air safety issues in cooperation with Deutsche Lufthansa
Equipment
Concerning the equipment in the aircraft, the group pointed out that it has to be easy to handle and
fast to remove and able to be mounted in the aircraft. No sophisticated ICU equipment will be
The EURAMET pre‐team will need communication equipment, an office box and a minimum of
medical equipment. For both the pre‐team and the EURAMET core team, food and water for at least
96 hours of self‐sufficiency have to be taken into account.
6.2 Working group (2): EURAMET deployment and legal aspects
Deployment
Concerning deployment the working group has defined the following steps of a EURAMET mission:
1. Request by MIC (Who requests MIC?)
2. Advance team (joint team SERM/EURAMET)
3. Rest of EURAMET deploys
4. Collect patients at airport
5. Travel to hub in Europe
END OF MISSION!
6. Onward transport to patient‘s home country via IMAS (JUH)/insurance company/national
entities
For the EURAMET pre‐team to be deployed within 12 hours the group pointed out the following
team structure and tasks:
• 1 medical doctor, 1 paramedic, 1 logistician, 1 embassy contact/liaison officer
• Tasks:
– Identify patients to be transported
– Identify patients’ needs
– Identify collecting point
– Identify transport means and take over logistics organization (together with the
national authorities)
– Identify necessary documents
– Contact point to hub/home country
Legal Aspects
The following legal issues of EURAMET missions were discussed during the workshop:
• Who is signing the papers?
• Who is responsible? ‐ On board: captain
‐ Medical consequences: medical doctor
‐ Collective/mission responsibility: head of mission
• Every patient to get on the plane needs to sign a waiver form!
• Doctor licenses differ not when treating patients from EU CPM countries
• What happens, if you have to land in another country? the plane is national soil (i.e.
Lufthansa = German soil; Air France = French soil etc.)
• only citizens from countries participating in the EU Community Mechanism countries are to
be repatriated Who decides on whether to take other nationalities (non EU‐
citizens/permanent residents)?
• EURAMET staff has NO EU immunities/privileges (national response)
Another important issues addressed was the difference between hospital flights and sanitary flights:
• MEDEVAC = Hospital flight = top priority, medical personnel and equipment form part of the
crew (not passengers); BUT this only applies for the medical doctor!
• Sanitary flight = not the whole flight subcontracted, but only seats, medical personnel are
6.3 Working group (3): EURAMET tactics, cooperation with partners and arrangements
for follow‐on transport
EURAMET tactics
The working group highlighted the need to clearly define the tasks and limits of EURAMET and the
question what kind of flight to use what is individual, i.e. to be covered by private ambulances?
What is covered by EURAMET? When is MEDEVAC/the military needed?
Definition of EURAMET:
• Focus on long and medium distance transport, disasters outside participating states of EU CP
mechanism (i.e. EU27, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Croatia)
• Mass casualty in natural and man‐made disasters, major accidents or terrorist attacks
• Civilian response using commercial aircrafts
• Who will be transported?:
- Patients up to NACA level IV
- Exclude heavily injured patients only non‐ventilated, non‐intubated, non‐ICU (level of
injury must be acknowledged by a doctor specialized in aerial medical evacuation as a
medium injury on the ground may be a heavy one in the air)
They also agreed on the issue of the EURAMET pre‐team:
• 4 ‐ 5 members per team as the minimum standard, preferably not more than 6
• Staff: Team Leader, Medical Doctor, Psycho‐social expert and Information Officer
• Every team member should be cross‐trained in minimum two functions
• Equipment: self‐sufficiency for at least the first 4 days
• Responsible for filling in the database of patients
Triage:
• Questions of triage: persons able for air transport? At what time are they transportable?
Level of treatment they need to get? Where to?
Medical, Logistical issues but also psycho‐social indications to be taken into consideration
Cooperation with partners and Arrangements for follow‐on transport
• Use existing systems common communication channels, standards and strategies
• Info sharing centre /Alert centre/patient transport network
• It was agreed to develop and implement a coordination and information platform for aerial
medical evacuations in emergencies with ONE single point of contact.
- Will be developed and set up as an IT‐platform
- Database containing information on: name, first name, date of birth, passport number,
picture, NACA score, Actual location (hospital) and Airport of Debarcation
- MIC will have access to the database and forward the information to the ministries
- access by all main players in that field
- Joint coordination with main players (possible basis: memorandum of understanding)
Cooperation with Lufthansa:
• Letter of Intent / Memorandum of Understanding
• Status as subcontractor
• Joint trainings
Question of cost coverage:
• EU would pay only 50% of the transport through the financial instrument and only on request
of a member state participating in the EU CP mechanism (this doesn’t apply to the one
mission within the Prep. Action 2009 project which will be fully covered)
• cooperation with embassies/governments?
- targeted consultation with governments identifying and pre‐defining the specific
benefits for the governments they will be part of the European response capability
which is especially beneficial for smaller countries that don’t have the capabilities
themselves
- contact via the national focal points
• costs follow‐on transport
- EURAMET is not responsible for Follow‐on transport! but there will be pre‐
arrangements with the cooperation partners
- questionnaire to identify possible payment individual health insurances, being a
member in an organization (e.g. car club, press, Johanniter) or certain credit cards
Cooperation with the media have an information officer
7.
Attachments
The following documents are attached.
1) Contact list of participants
2) Schedule
3) EURAMET Project Presentation
4) Presentations by the workshop participants
a. Edwin Benko (Government of Styria, Austria)
b. Wolfgang Strahl (Johanniter International Assistance Cologne, Germany)
c. Dr. Dimitrios Efthymiadis (Aero‐Medical Evacuations Office, Greece)
d. Dr. Andreas Grove (Joint Medical Forces Command, Germany)
e. Dr. Michael Meyer (German Automobile Association ADAC, Germany)
f. Manfred Mohr (Deutsche Lufthansa AGa, Germany)
g. Nils Uhlenbrock (Federal Agency for Technical Relief THW, Germany)
5) Working groups participants list
6) Final presentations of the working groups
a. EURAMET personnel, training, exercise and equipment
b. EURAMET deployment and legal aspects
c. EURAMET tactics, cooperation with partners and arrangements for follow‐on transport
