Continuity Planning Workshop for Community Based Organizations

Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) Made Practical

May 18, 2018
Middleboro, MA
This course will address key components of a continuity of operations (COOP) plan, including how to identify essential and supporting functions, incorporate vital considerations that ensure the safety and well-being of patients and staff, and protect essential equipment and records. Participants will also learn how a COOP plan can be used as a dynamic tool to ensure minimal disruption to essential services and operations following an incident. Participants will receive a set of tools to use in developing or enhancing COOP plans for their own organizations. 

Module III: Hospital-Based Patient Decontamination Operations

May 22 & 23, 2018
Boston, MA

This course has been developed specifically for operational members or managers of hospital-based patient decontamination programs. The course is designed to engage participants in a discussion-based learning environment and consists of eight hours of classroom instruction, followed by a fast-paced, hands-on, eight-hour practical session involving the deployment of patient decontamination equipment.

The Office of Public Health Preparedness is Hiring! 

Hurricane Preparedness Week

The week of May 6-12, 2018 is National Hurricane Preparedness Week. The official start of the 2018 hurricane season is June 1 for the Atlantic Ocean. There are a plethora of resources from NOAA, FEMA, and HHS ASPR to learn more about the week and share key messages with others.

Lessons from 2017
As we prepare for the next season, we’ve compiled some lessons learned and other resources in the healthcare sector for response and recovery from the record-breaking 2017 hurricane season:

• This issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an overview of the status of the recovery in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin islands six months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, with a focus on the health care systems and health needs of residents.
• This report from HHS ASPR compiles data for approximately 100 Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) units from regions across the country as they engaged in preparedness and response activities including dialysis, patient movement and other ESF-8 support.
• This infographic from HHS ASPR details 90 days of health response and recovery in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
• This article shares perspectives on healthcare Information technology (IT) challenges faced in Puerto Rico and Florida.

2018 NACCHO Preparedness Summit

This year’s NACCHO Preparedness Summit took place in Atlanta from April 17 – 20, where the theme was “Strengthening National Health Security: Mastering Ordinary Responses, Building Resilience for Extraordinary Events.” Our Office of Public Health Preparedness presented four sessions this year; you can find our presentations on the Learning Center and reach out to us if you’d like to learn more. The presentations were:
 

• Get Ready, Be Safe, Stay Healthy: A Holistic Approach to Community Resilience
• Recovery Planning for Public Health and Healthcare: Turning Guidance into Actionable Plans
• Stop the Bleed Training Program for Non-Healthcare Professionals in a Professional Environment
• Strengthening Community Support Systems by Enhancing Continuity of Operations for Community-Based Organizations

• Select presentations from HHS ASPR on health security, priorities for the future, MRC activations, and more
• Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, released in February 2018
• Vegas Strong: A Community Moving from Tragedy to Resilience (presentation with slides)
• Harris County Public Health’s YouTube playlists related to their comprehensive Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts: execution of a CASPER to assess community needs and mobile vehicle deployment
• Building Bridges Between Emergency Medical Services, Public Health, and Community Healthcare (presentation with slides)
• Comprehensive Update of a Respiratory Protection Program to Ensure Local Health Department Staff are Protected against Hazardous Exposures in the Event of Public Health Emergencies (poster presentation)
• Successful Engagement of the Voluntary Sector in Public Health Preparedness Planning (presentation with slides)

• Learn about an eight-hour, self-paced online curriculum Disaster Health Core Curriculum offered by NCDMPH.  
• Read the recently-released National Health Security Preparedness Index from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that reports on current levels of health security around the nation.
• Check out the CDC’s Public Health Preparedness and Response 2018 National Snapshot. 
• Take a look at FEMA’s 2018-2022 Strategic Plan to learn about the agency’s three “ambitious, but achievable, goals.” This shift in focus is also described in the inaugural FEMA podcast on “How FEMA’s Focus is Shifting”.  
• Watch this one-hour webinar from the National Nurse-Led Care Coalition discussing how health centers can play a crucial role in local emergency planning and response efforts. 
• Share these new respiratory protection fact sheets from NIOSH.
• See this tip sheet from TRACIE for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to plan for no-notice incidents.
• Review the CMS Emergency Preparedness rule as it applies to integrated healthcare system requirements summarized in this document compiled by TRACIE.
• Explore this catalog that summarizes key resources for healthcare cybersecurity available to the healthcare sector.
• View this webinar recording from CDC on Introduction to Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication.
• Read this legal brief, from the Americans with Disabilities National Network, on the development of emergency planning for people with disabilities.
• Use this compilation of voluntary guidance and assessment tools from the Dept. of Homeland Security on the Crisis Event Response and Recovery Access Framework. 
• Participate in the upcoming FEMA webinar "DHS Resources for Building Cyber Security Resilience, Capacity, and Capability" on May 14, 2018.  

• Boston Emergency Medical Services (BEMS)
• Boston Healthcare Preparedness Coalition (HPC)
• Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals (COBTH)
• Harvard Emergency Preparedness Research, Evaluation & Practice (EPREP)
• Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH)
• Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)
• Boston Office of Emergency Management (OEM)
• The Local Public Health Institute (LPHI)