FIRST RESPONSE PROTOCOL

The best primary care is performed by individuals familiar with the history of the facility, the design of the facility, and other pertinent information. To ensure that this exists, it would be to the facility=s benefit to provide information to a central facility about water source, land characteristics (including topography, watershed, urban land use, agricultural activities and specific location), system design, water chemistry (source, system, water characteristics), and species being cultured. This non-proprietary information would go to the Aquaculture Coordinators Office for conversion into a GIS format and storage as an information layer available for immediate retrieval when a problem with a particular facility manifests itself. The first response provider responds to the facility with the history of the facility, if available, and all of the information provided by the facility. In this way the first response provider knows much about the facility and is better prepared to handle the current problem and obtain additional information that will be required to correct it. The first response provider then, upon arrival, documents the event from anecdotal information, takes physical/chemical readings (temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, conductivity) and obtains from the facility owner or manager information on ammonia, nitrite and other parameters which may be monitored on a regular basis. Upon completion the first response provider then decides which of four types of samples: chemical (diagnostic, toxicological), microbiological (identification, sensitivity), pathological (morphological verification), or clinical chemical (serology and serum chemistry) need to be obtained while on site. These are submitted to appropriate laboratories for analysis. The information generated then moves to an individual designated to provide follow-up services. All information collected is generally regarded as confidential unless it is a public health matter.