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Department of Health Plans Mobile Medical Crisis Unit

Published 5/4/2003

The D.C. Department of Health’s Emergency Health and Medical Services Administration is planning a mobile medical unit to provide surge capacity including triage, decontamination, and vaccination in the event of a crisis. The mobile facility will be comprised of two core parts. A hard shell component, similar to a trailer, will carry eight critical care beds and be hauled by an 18-wheel truck. A soft-shell component that can be pulled by a pickup truck will fold out into four individual climate-controlled tents housing eight to ten beds each. The mobile unit will cost between $5-million and $7-million and could care for as many as 1,000 patients at a time, either attached to a hospital or deployed to an open space.