About DQE
DQE Emergency Preparedness Products
Mission | Expertise | Products | History
DQE provides practical products and expert support that improves the safety and readiness of the public safety, healthcare, and workplace community.
Since 1990, the emergency preparedness expertise at DQE has enabled national organizations, government agencies, and thousands of hospitals, fire departments, and law enforcement agencies better prepare for the consequences of natural and man-made disasters. The staff at DQE has used their personal experience from the front line – as emergency physicians, nurses, firefighters, emergency managers, and safety specialists – to develop and enhance emergency preparedness products and healthcare emergency preparedness services that are appropriate and practical.
DQE has the expertise and resources needed to help hospitals, public safety responders, workplaces enhance their readiness for an impending crisis – before it becomes a disaster.
DQE provides equipment and supplies that address the true needs of responders, emergency managers, and healthcare professionals everywhere. The products are developed to be appropriate and practical solutions. From single victim to mass casualty events, DQE products are designed to scale up or down, depending on your needs, to deliver the appropriate level of response. The DQE product line includes:
- Decontamination Shower Systems
- Decontamination Accessories
- Firefighter Rehabilitation Supplies
- Hazmat Response Tools
- Hospital Incident Command Supplies
- Infection Control Products
- Medical Surge Supplies
- Personal Protective Equipment
- Custom products, upon request
DQE Inc. started as a research project and evolved into an emergency preparedness brand that enhanced and changed the way first responders and healthcare professionals prepare, respond and recover from emergencies ranging from hazardous materials events to mass casualty incidents. The company’s founder, Howard Levitin, MD, FACEP, became interested in the role of hospitals in a hazardous materials incident after being confronted with two contaminated patients while working the night shift in the emergency department. While researching the methodology for handling contaminated patients in the ED he met a firefighter who was working to improve the design, quality, and dependability of portable decontamination equipment. They joined forces and the result is DQE.
In 1990, DQE started out focusing on hazardous materials decontamination products and healthcare emergency preparedness services (the company was originally named HAZ/MAT DQE “Decontamination Quick & Easy”). The initial endeavor to build a more functional decontamination shower proved so successful that it sparked the DQE passion for developing other innovative emergency response products. What started as a part-time venture in the owner’s garage quickly grew into the development of hundreds of unique and practical products. Since its inception, DQE has introduced several brand names including multi-functional and expandable decon showers (Quick Response™, MasCas®, and the Indestructo®), personal privacy and safety kits (Doff-it®, Don-it®, and StatPaq™), medical surge products (MasCache®), and bedside commode liners (Sani-Bag+®).
After training several hospitals on how to receive and treat contaminated patients, DQE and its principals drew attention from many national organizations. In 1991 DQE participated in a CDC panel that developed the medical preparedness guidelines for hospitals situated in communities that store military chemical weapons from WWI and then went on to provide training at the army’s chemical weapons school.
Just prior to the start of the Olympic Games in 1996, DQE was tasked with training all of the hospitals in the Atlanta area. For many of these hospitals, DQE training was their first exposure to disaster preparedness. In 2001 DQE and its principals co-developed and delivered the medical training for the Domestic Preparedness Program which was the country’s first national initiative to provide instruction on the medical consequences of terrorism. This training was provided to hospitals in over 100 major US cities.
The U.S. military, in 2000, tasked DQE with preparing all of its medical facilities in the US, Europe, and Japan to treat contaminated patients. Starting in 2003, DQE participated on medical expert panels with the army, HRSA, and AHRQ to develop a national model for providing mass medical care during an infectious disease outbreak, define disaster preparedness standards for hospitals, and develop a readiness assessment tool for the US government.
These opportunities matured our understanding and know-how about hospital all-hazards preparedness. The unmatched experience in providing training, exercise, and emergency management planning to hundreds of hospitals, positioned DQE as a premier provider of disaster preparedness products.