Hospital to host Incident Command System course for emergency responders

WARWICK — Recent natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as the constant threat of terrorist attacks, stress the importance to every community of having a standardized incident response management system. On Saturday, Oct. 22, and Saturday, Oct. 29, St. Anthony Community Hospital will offer an Incident Command System course for all area emergency medical service providers. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Greenbriar Room at Mt. Alverno Center at 20 Grand Ave. in Warwick. The instructor will be George Contreras, M.S., M.P.H., director of emergency management at New York University Hospital in Manhattan. Contreras has experience in emergency services and preparedness, including certification as a paramedic. He is also an adjunct professor at Metropolitan College of New York, where he teaches emergency and disaster management at the graduate level. Contreras earned a master of science degree in hospital administration from Iona College in 2002. The federally recognized course is offered through the cooperation with Good Samaritan Hospital, and is free to all emergency medical technicians. The course is also approved by the Hudson Valley Regional Emergency Services Council and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Providers who attend both days will receive 12 hours of continuing medical education (CME) credits. The management system is used to direct all operations at the incident scene. It is a subsystem of the National Interagency Incident Management System, which is used to respond to a wide range of emergencies, including fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, riots, spilling of hazardous materials, and other natural or human-caused incidents. For more information, call 987-8293 or 368-5408.