Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) said started testing the capabilities of its new Portable Biocontainment Unity (PBCU) on June 24.
The system will test the Tranquil Passport Exercise to test a portable biocontainment unit and the healthcare system’s ability to “isolate and treat high-consequence infectious disease patients.” Working with more than 50 partner organizations, the exercise will test several complex patient movement activities to see how the nation handles safety and securely transporting simulated high-consequence infections disease patients to regional treatment centers using the PBCU.
“Testing our new biocontainment unit makes America safer and strengthens our national security,” HHS Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response John Knox said. “This cutting-edge technology allows us to more quickly and safely transport patients to treatment centers in the U.S. for definitive care, while ensuring containment of the simulated highly infectious disease used in the exercise. Exercises like this are essential to testing our healthcare delivery systems and improving our ability to save lives and protect the health care workforce.”
The test began with government officials making a series of coordination calls to plan the movement of a cluster of American who will simulate infectious disease patients. The patients from Toronto, Canada to the United States will be moved using the PBCU to Washington, D.C. to be transferred to Medstar Washington Hospital Center, Children’s National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. The U.S. State Department’s Containerized Bio-Containment systems were also used. Those systems were designed to transport high-consequence infectious disease patients via air from abroad to the Unite States for treatment.
ASPR’s PBCU will be used to test transportation of the simulated patients to HHS supported Level 1 Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers – Health + Hospitals/Bellevue (New York City, N.Y.); Emory University Hospital and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (Atlanta, Ga.); and University of North Carolina Medical Center (Chapel Hill, N.C.).
The PBCU is the first domestic resource for isolating and treating those high-consequence patients over long distances to Regional treatment centers. It is the only multi-patient, multi-modal transport solution of its kind, officials said.