Book excerpt: This color-coded, rapid-reference text includes all of the essential information you need to manage any disaster or emergency with mass casualties. Coverage of each category of disaster—weather-related, public health, infectious disease, chemical, biological, radiological/nuclear, and explosive—offers vital content on dealing with the injuries and nursing protocols for each scenario. Plus, information on disaster sites and clinical management prepares you to take action at the scene or in the hospital setting. - Provides the need-to-know information on emerging infectious diseases, such as Swine Flu, including: - Distinguishing Pandemic Influenza from annual seasonal influenza. - Assessing and managing patients with quarantinable infectous diseases. - Preventing further transmission. - Critical Info feature highlights the most important points from each chapter.Assessment illustrations show characteristic symptoms and make it easy to identify signs of illness quickly. - Icons alert you to important information to consider before approaching a patient, including personal risk, contagion, and reporting obligations. - Color-coded sections and coordinated thumb tabs make it easy to find important information at a glance. - Chapter outlines provide page references for each major section within the chapter. - Glossary and Acronyms section includes the most commonly used acronyms and terms you'll need in emergency situations. - Family Disaster Plan appendix offers vital information on creating a personal disaster plan, and Family Risk icons alert you to dangers that may be carried to your family. - Contacts appendix provides federal agency contact information, as well as space for you to fill in local emergency contacts for increased efficiency in a disaster.