SES Announces New Exercise and Training Program

Continuity of Operations Planning for Public Health and Hospitals

Dr. Scott Lillibridge, Director, National Center for Emergency Medical Preparedness and Response at Texas A&M has designed a program for public health departments and hospitals to ensure continued operations throughout a disaster, epidemic, or terrorist event.   This program will assist public health organizations to better prepare their plans and to develop procedures to ensure continued operations amid a disaster. This program is designed to ensure that essential public health and hospital services will continue during a catastrophe. The leadership and communications component of this planning, training and exercise program will ensure that all personnel will be aware of their assigned COOP responsibilities and better able to complete these tasks.  

Using hazard vulnerability assessments, this program will assist organizations in determining where gaps in continuity of operations planning exist and how best to address these needs vulnerabilities.   Key components of COOP program development include: planning, determining essential functions, delegation of authority, and a host of human resources, communications, and logistical components that specifically support activities that are expected to continue during an emergency.

Within the broader health sector of response, public health organizations and hospitals have many essential functions (CDC, ASPR) that must be maintained during a disaster.   However, the proper integration of a disaster responders, particularly during a regional response of catastrophic dimensions (e.g., pandemic influenza or Hurricane Katrina) show that these functions must work in tandem to fully support the health needs of a stricken population.   In addition, all health related organizations who respond to disasters are required to use some form of the Incident Command System (ICS) and participate within a National Incident Management System (NIMS) framework.   These tasks will not be achieved in a health care environment without a program of iterative planning, training and exercises that is complementary to federal, state, and local planning notions.  

                        COOP Program Components:    

1. State-Wide COOP Training Webinar: archived, banked and syndicated
2. COOP Planning workshops
3. Decentralized health department exercise program regions and autonomous health departments (desk top exercise format)
4. Decentralized hospital exercise program (preferable targeting health systems and trauma regions) using desk-top exercise format  
5. Corrective training or technical assistance throughout the cycle

For more information, call (515) 321-7000.