Healthcare Coalitions: The New Foundation for National Healthcare Preparedness and Response for Catastrophic Health Emergencies

Abstract

After 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax letters, it was evident that our nation's healthcare system was largely underprepared to handle the unique needs and large volumes of people who would seek medical care following catastrophic health events. In response, in 2002 Congress established the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to strengthen the ability of U.S. hospitals to prepare for and respond to bioterrorism and naturally occurring epidemics and disasters. Since 2002, the program has resulted in substantial improvements in individual hospitals' disaster readiness. In 2007, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) contracted with the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to conduct an assessment of U.S. hospital preparedness and to develop tools and recommendations for evaluating and improving future hospital preparedness efforts. One of the most important findings from this work is that healthcare coalitions-collaborative groups of local healthcare institutions and response agencies that work together to prepare for and respond to emergencies-have emerged throughout the U.S. since the HPP began. This article provides an overview of the HPP and the Center's hospital preparedness research for ASPR. Based on that work, the article also defines healthcare coalitions and identifies their structure and core functions, provides examples of more developed coalitions and common challenges faced by coalitions, and proposes that healthcare coalitions should become the foundation of a national strategy for healthcare preparedness and response for catastrophic health events.

Computer-Facilitated Assessment of Disaster Preparedness for Remote Hospitals in a Long-Distance, Virtual Tabletop Drill Model

“…These categories and their respective questions, adapted from HEAT, provided a thorough framework for assessing hospitals' state of readiness. 3 The stimuli and questions were not directly coded into RDDAT. Instead, RDDAT incorporated an interface for creating and editing the stimuli and their accompanying questions.…”

“…Lastly, experts in emergency preparedness tend to base at academic or government institutions, thus making it difficult for private healthcare facilities to exploit these intellectual resources. 3 A mechanism for experts to assist assessment of disaster readiness of an institution from a distance, and to participate in the exercise from its own base of operations is needed for efficient mass casualty planning on a global scale. Such a system was developed and implemented that remotely assessed preparedness of nine hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup games.…”

Preparedness and Response to a Rural Mass Casualty Incident

“…Regionalization, as used in this summary, refers to the establishment of healthcare coalitions that extend beyond immediate local responders and providers to include those of neighboring localities, regional public health entities, and other private and public organizations that may contribute to MCI preparedness and response (Courtney, 2009). Regionalization seeks to respond to the potential for, or occurrence of, an MCI whose resource requirements for emergency medical services (EMS) personnel, equipment, and hospital capacity exceed that of any one hospital or EMS service.…”

From Incident to Inpatient: How Healthcare Coalitions Can Improve Incident Response

“…Tier 6). The authors place HCCs in Tier 2, stating an HCC "provides a central integration mechanism for information sharing and management coordination among healthcare assets" Courtney et al (2009). review the Hospital Preparedness Program established by the U.S. Congress in 2002, which has led…”