HANYS’ Committee Discusses Emergency Preparedness Funding, HERDS, and Integration

HANYS’ statewide Emergency Preparedness Advisory Committee on Friday discussed a wide range of issues related to hospital preparedness for natural disasters or nuclear, biological, chemical, or terrorist attacks. The Committee heard presentations from state officials on the state’s emergency data system and federal funding for the coming year, and discussed how to integrate emergency preparedness into day-to-day operations.

While federal funding for hospital emergency preparedness has declined for the past two years, it will likely remain the same in 2009-2010 as it was this year, said Robert Burhans, Director of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Health Emergency Preparedness Program. He said that actual amounts are uncertain until the federal grant guidance is released early in 2009. Assuming that the federal grant guidance would not contain as many changes as in past years, Mr. Burhans believes there would be an easier transition from year to year, improved continuity, and fewer changes to deliverables for hospitals in New York State.

Debra Sottolano, Ph.D., Program Manager, DOH Bureau of Healthcom Network System Management, provided an update on the status of the Health Emergency Response Data System (HERDS) re-design. Hospitals have been providing recommendations to DOH to improve the HERDS application. DOH hopes to redesign HERDS to provide health care facilities and public health officials with a simple, rapid, and accurate method to collect, analyze, and disseminate data during an emergency or disaster.

Committee members discussed how to sustain emergency preparedness efforts and progress, despite declining funding. The Committee indicated that integration of emergency management into the overall facility operations will demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts for both emergency and non-emergency routine, planned business disruptions. The Committee also discussed the importance of regional planning, communication, and collaboration among neighboring hospitals.

The Committee agreed on the importance of integrating emergency management into the overall operations of a facility. The Committee recommended that emergency managers become more involved with planned, routine business disruptions because early involvement of emergency management into such occurrences would result in less down time and quicker return to normal operations.

A Committee meeting summary is available to members on HANYS’ Web site. Contact: Christopher Smith