Dr, Brandford Lee Nevada's State Health Officer sits at his desk and talks about his recent trip to Israel. What struck him most were the residents there who knew one thing for certain. " For everyone, everyone its very clear the situation may change at any moment."
With the violence and the emergency response to that violence, Israel is an ideal place to learn medical emergency preparedness.

And that's exactly what Nevada's State Health Officer had the opportunity to do earlier this month.
Dr. Lee along with six other state health officers spent most of their time in Tel Aviv. " We could absolutely use in our exercises that has nothing to do with the fact that they are at war perpetually, there are things about the processes they use, just the way they do their charting, just the way they have their computers systems inter linked among hospitals."

Dr. Lee says he's not insinuating Nevada or the rest of the country for that matter needs to start thinking about living in conditions like those in Israel where suicide bombers, or air attacks are common place. What he is saying, we can learn from a place which has extensive experience in this area, and take that knowledge and plug it into flooding, earthquakes, fires, and even an epidemic response in our area.
" Simple vests to identify which are nurses which are doctors, which are administration people which are man power, in the Israeli hospitals they had stacks of vests that everyone put on so they were easily identifiable just by color coding I mean that seems like a simple process."

Dr. Lee says he'll start talking to other state and local agencies about what could be done here. Money, personnel, and policy all have to be taken into consideration. But he does believe in the future Nevada will be able to take at least a small bit of the Israeli experience and make our area more prepared for whatever man made or natura disaster which might arise.l