HHS Selects Pilot Projects to Demonstrate Better Approach to Disaster Medical Care

In a disaster, thousands of Americans may require immediate medical specialty care, surpassing the care available in the community. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) today awarded two $3 million grants to demonstrate how a new Regional Disaster Health Response System could meet these needs, including trauma, burn or other specialty care, during a national emergency and save more lives.

“Our nation faces real and serious threats that represent a looming risk to healthcare delivery,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dr. Robert Kadlec. “This system offers a powerful way to form alliances and build specialized capabilities that save more lives in overwhelming, catastrophic emergencies. The system draws on the existing U.S. healthcare infrastructure, pulling together private sector and federal resources in a way that has never been done. I encourage all healthcare delivery facilities and providers to get involved.”

Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, received the grants from ASPR’s Hospital Preparedness Program to conduct pilot projects that show the potential effectiveness and viability of a Regional Disaster Health Response System.

The Regional Disaster Health Response System will build on local health care coalitions and trauma centers, creating a tiered system of disaster care. The system will integrate local medical response capabilities with emergency medical services, burn centers, pediatric hospitals, labs, and outpatient services, to meet the overwhelming health care needs created by disasters.

More than 31,000 health care organizations participate in health care coalitions nationwide, which are funded by the Hospital Preparedness Program. Coalitions create partnerships among health care facilities and providers in communities, primarily from the private sector, to prepare for disasters and respond.

In demonstrating a Regional Disaster Health Response System, each pilot project must:

• build a partnership for disaster health response to support clinical specialty care;
• align plans, policies, and procedures for clinical excellence in disasters;
• increase state-wide and regional medical surge capacity;
• improve state-wide and regional situational awareness, such as the availability of hospital beds; and
• develop metrics and test the regional system’s capabilities.

Nebraska Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital were selected from among 19 applicants nationwide by a panel of experts from professional associations, academia, and federal agencies.