Incident Management Team

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) respond to approximately 250,000 9-1-1 requests for medical aid on an annual basis in San Bernardino County resulting in the lifesaving assessment, treatment, and transport of injured and sick patients to a hospital. The rapid and unexpected emergence of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) resulted in the need to take new, innovative, and decisive actions to reduce the devastating effects of the pandemic on San Bernardino County residents and an anticipated substantial increase in the number of 9-1-1 calls for medical services. The need for an inter-departmental, inter-organization team to manage a multi-jurisdictional response quickly became evident. Independent and uncoordinated actions would have resulted in an unorganized EMS system response that may have delayed responses or cost lives.To address the myriad of challenges, the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency (ICEMA), the San Bernardino County Fire Department, the San Bernardino County fire rescue operational area coordinator, and most of the ambulance transport providers and local jurisdiction fire departments entered into Unified Command in the earliest days of the pandemic. This established a multi-discipline, inter-department Incident Management Team (IMT). The IMT developed multiple new and creative strategies to address the expected impacts in anticipation of extremely high 9-1-1 call volumes and the potential loss of fire service and ambulance personnel due to illness.