Systemic Collapse: Medical Care in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

This article describes and analyzes key aspects of the medical response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It is based on interviews with individuals involved in the response and on analysis of pub-lished reports and news articles. Findings include: (1) federal, state, and local disaster plans did not include provisions for keeping hospitals functioning during a large-scale emergency; (2) the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) was ill-prepared for providing medical care to patients who needed it; (3) there was no coordinated system for recruiting, deploying, and managing volunteers; and (4) many Gulf Coast residents were separated from their medical records. The article makes rec-ommendations for improvement. THIS ARTICLE describes and analyzes key aspects ofthe medical response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, based on interviews with individuals directly in-volved in the response and on an analysis of published re-ports and news articles. This article does not attempt to describe the dedicated and heroic individual efforts of the thousands of medical professionals from the New Or-leans region and around the country who responded t