ETS Netherlands - Trauma region in the North of The Netherlands

According to Dutch law, Health Care Institutions are obliged to guarantee a constant level of healthcare in every situation, including disasters. Since 2008, the Dutch ministry of Health reserves an annual budget to stimulate the disaster-preparedness-activities of the health care system.

The trauma region in the North of the Netherlands (hereafter AZNN) is a partner in the area of crisis and disaster management and provides education, training and exercise. For the execution of these activities at Health Care Facilities in the North of the Netherlands, the training method Emergo Train System (hereafter ETS) was introduced in 2010. With the support of the ETS faculty, 6 ETS Educators are educated in accordance with the standards and license of Sweden. They have educated around 60 ETS Senior instructors for guidance of activities with the support of the ETS training method in the past 7 years. The training method is implemented in various medical institutes. The ETS Educators strive to maintain well educated ETS instructors and educators together with AZNN in order to provide ETS activities in the region.

The healthcare facilities that use the ETS methods are:

• The hospitals
• Public health services
• Regional ambulance services including the ARC
• GP care

Targets and assumptions of the ETS faculty Groningen

• ETS is implemented as a tool to prepare for disasters and large incidents in the region.
• Healthcare facilities in the trauma network supply ETS instructors (at least one) for the regional pool. These will work together to set up ETS exercises in the region.
• ETS exercises are also provided with the use of external instructors from other pools.
• ETS exercises in the region are evaluated and feedback is sent to the program director.
• Development protocols of ETS exercises are available for the trauma region.

Qualification ETS educators and ETS instructors

After successfully completing the ETS instructor training, the ETS instructors are appointed to a pool. An overview of all the ETS instructors and their availability for regional trainings is kept at the secretariat. At the end of each year the program director and ETS educators will receive this. This overview is then used to create an annual report.

Development ETS

The ETS educators are licensed as a group and are therefor all partially responsible for the ETS developments. An annual ETS development plan is created in collaboration with the program director. This plan is based on the evaluation of the regional ETS exercises and the regional annual plan of AZNN.

Cooperation and relation with other ETS faculties

The ETS educators keep track of national and international developments of other ETS faculties. They will reach out for collaboration when possible as well as adding process developments into their own annual ETS development plan.