Partnership in Preparation: Strengthening Radiological Response Capabilities Through Collaboration with Community Partners

Emergency Preparedness and planning for radiological emergencies can be challenging. This session will introduce tools and strategies for mitigating the impact of these obstacles. As part of these strategies, insight into how community partnerships can strengthen response capabilities and overcome these challenges will be proposed. The mutually beneficial relationships developed between the City of Hamilton First Response Teams and the McMaster University Health Physics Department Radiation Safety Specialists will be presented as a model for bolstering overall response to emergencies involving nuclear material, radiation, contamination, or other radiological emergencies. Finally, there will be a breakdown of two case studies involving multi-team, co-operative response to simulated large-scale nuclear emergencies. Planning for radiological emergencies is hard enough, why do it alone?!