Tragedies Provide Learning Opportunities.

With the increasing frequency of mass-casualty events, the American College of Emergency Physicians has assembled a High Threat Task Force to look for ways to improve the emergency response to these events. The panel intends to focus on training and operations, but the ultimate goal is to find ways to eliminate preventable deaths. The panel intends to standardize and unify improvement efforts that have thus far been disparate. The co-chairman of the panel says one of the biggest gaps is the lack of evidence-based guidelines for how emergency personnel should respond to mass-shooting events. Noting that the incident command structure was created for fighting wildfires, the co-chairman of the task force notes that mass-shooting events require a more dynamic leadership response.