Healthcare Preparedness Update – December 2014

Healthcare Preparedness Update

Working toward integration of Public Health, Healthcare, and Emergency Management to strengthen Healthcare Preparedness, Health Security, and Community Resilience

Pan Flu Scramble Now Available The new “Pan Flu Scramble Exercise” or the “Scramble” has just been released, providing communities and their healthcare stakeholders with an efficient tool to test patient surge plans. The Scramble is a discussion-based, tabletop exercise which allows communities to ·        Address Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) and  Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) preparedness and response capabilities for healthcare system preparedness, information sharing, and medical surge. ·        Analyze their medical surge capacity. ·        Identify potential gaps in the community’s healthcare model of delivery in a no-fault environment. ·        Conduct a Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) compliant exercise. The Pan Flu Scramble is available for download at http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/healthcare/panfluscramble.htm. For more information about how you can use the Scramble for your community planning efforts, contact us athealthcareprepared@cdc.gov.

COCA Joins HPA The Healthcare Preparedness Activity (HPA) is honored to welcome the Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity (COCA) to the team. COCA provides valuable expertise in the delivery of timely, accurate, and credible information to clinicians related to emergency preparedness and response as well as emerging public health threats.   COCA also helps to strengthen the emergency response capacity of clinicians by ·        Fostering partnerships with national clinician organizations to strengthen information-sharing networks before, during, and after a public health emergency. ·        Disseminating evidence-based health information and public health emergency messages to clinicians. ·        Collaborating with clinicians to develop communication strategies that support health risk reduction opportunities during public emergencies. ·        Providing and promoting emergency preparedness and response training opportunities for clinicians. COCA serves a wide range of clinical professionals, including: physicians, nurses, physician’s assistants, pharmacists, paramedics, veterinarians, epidemiologists, public health practitioners, and state and local health department officials and provides a variety of products and services, including ·        Conference calls/webinars and email updates related to CDC guidance and recommendations on emerging health threats ·        Training and conference announcements ·        Clinical support via direct email for questions and feedback ·        Continuing education opportunities. The integration of COCA and HPA will enhance the team’s ability to establish a recurring forum between HPA and local, regional, state and federal partners in order to facilitate program outreach; while providing increased opportunities to identify needs for healthcare planning at the community level. For additional information about COCA and to sign up for the COCA information list, go to http://emergency.cdc.gov/coca/.

New Essential Services Webpage In 2007-2008, nine states and local communitiesreceived grants to begin to address the challenges of delivering essential healthcare services during a pandemic. Each community was required to ·        Develop its ability to coordinate various unrelated healthcare delivery resources such as staff, supplies, and medicines. ·        Determine how it would maintain delivery of essential healthcare services while providing care for large numbers of influenza patients during a pandemic. ·        Develop plans, guidelines, and tools to assist with these activities (e.g., staffing plans, triage and care plans, supply and resource lists).   Awardees’ products can be found on HPA's "Delivering Essential Healthcare Services" webpage at: http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/healthcare/essentialhc.htm.

Planning Workshop for Addressing Pediatric Surge HPA recently conducted the Planning Workshop for Addressing Pediatric Surge with Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. The workshop focused on the process of advancing coordination and planning between the pediatric hospital and general healthcare systems to address the delivery of healthcare in a pediatric surge event. A variety of key sectors were represented at the workshop including, but not limited to, public health, pediatric and general healthcare, emergency management, and community partners. HPA is hopeful that other pediatric hospitals will benefit from Primary Children's hard work and final products.

Important New Resources:

Disaster Preparedness Budget Model

The model is an Excel-based tool designed to assist healthcare executives in preparing their finances to withstand a large-scale public health emergency. This model estimates the resources needed by healthcare department (e.g., administration, emergency room, facilities, information and technology) during a disaster. It also calculates the amount of cash reserves an executive may need for maintaining operations while awaiting reimbursement from insurance companies or government agencies. It is located at: http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/healthcare/hospitals.htm.

Hospital Legal Preparedness Resources

The CDC Public Health Law program has compiled a list of relevant legal resources to help hospitals incorporate law into emergency preparedness. The list can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hospital.html.

HPA Puzzle

Answers to the HPA Scramble from the April edition of the Healthcare Preparedness Update

DOWN

1. CDC's Healthcare Preparedness Activity

2. A meeting at which a group of people engage in intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project - Workshop

3. The ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data -Surveillance

ACROSS

4. A person who is among those responsible for going immediately to the scene of an accident or emergency to provide assistance - Responder

5. Any incident or event, natural or human caused, that requires an organized response by a public, private, and/or governmental entity in order to protect life, public health and safety, values to be protected, and to minimize any disruption of governmental, social, and economic services – All-Hazard

6. A sudden rush of patients - Surge

7. The novel influenza virus responsible for the 2009 pandemic – H7N9

8. The act of cooperating with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected - Collaboration

9. This provides the mechanism for coordinated federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local resources in response to public health or medical situations –ESF8

10. A supply of resources stored for future use - Stockpile