What’s happening: On May 14, the House Energy and Commerce Committee finalized bill language that proposes major cuts and policy changes to the Medicaid program (Medi-Cal in California) that would severely impact California’s health care system.
This session, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Law Program and the Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response, provides key information on federal public emergency law.
What’s happening: The American Hospital Association (AHA) is asking hospitals to complete the AHA Annual Survey, which will help health care leaders, policymakers, and researchers describe and understand hospital operations.
What else to know: Last year, only 60.7% of California’s hospitals completed this survey. It is crucial that this year, information from all California hospitals is included in this critical national data set, as California has the second largest number of hospitals in the country — along with high labor costs, added regulations, seismic standards, and more. The deadline for completing the survey is May 5.
The Ready or Not? report by the Trust for America’s Health offers an independent evaluation of the U.S.’s public health readiness, highlighting progress and areas needing improvement. It reviews state preparedness levels, the federal government’s role, and suggests enhancements for emergency response capabilities. The report promotes accountability in the use of taxpayer funds for health emergency readiness and recommends transitioning to a strategic, capability-focused system for effective response to health crises, including disease, disasters, and bio-terrorism threats. It also emphasizes the need for transparency to allow policymakers to accurately gauge the nation’s preparedness.
Disruption is now the norm, and hospitals must be prepared to respond to multiple types of disasters – sometimes running simultaneous responses or prolonged incident command centers. Learn from an emergency preparedness coordinator whose hospital has opened HICS 17 times in seven years, responding to a wide variety of disasters. This session shares tips on engaging staff and leaders in a meaningful way to build a living, relevant emergency management program that has the strength to be flexible, adding resilience to your team to emerge stronger after disasters.
2022 Disaster Conference
The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) Pilot Program identifies opportunities to enhance partnerships between military and civilian health care systems to improve military-civilian interoperability and medical surge capabilities and capacity to care for combat casualties repatriated to the United States. This session provides an overview of the pilot program and activities completed to date, highlights medical surge readiness, and identifies opportunities for improvement in the Sacramento region based on stakeholder feedback.
2022 Disaster Conference
Kaiser Permanente presents on its journey to standardize emergency response across eight regions, 42 hospitals, and a national command center. Learn about the research, development, and implementation of an incident response tool that fosters effective, accurate, and timely communication. Learnings from Kaiser Permanente can help other hospitals identify technology needs, potential questions, issues and strategies as they work to improve incident response.
2022 Disaster Conference – Best Practice Showcase
Shared by Stanford Health Care, this tool demonstrates how hospitals and health systems can deploy their Incident Management Team and Command Center virtually. The resource offers helpful information on weighing pros/cons, examines application scenarios, and explores the challenges and opportunities associated with virtual/hybrid emergency response.
Every spring for the past 50 years, the nation has come together to recognize the special place hospitals hold in their communities — the lives they save, the families they support, the unimaginable challenges they help people face and conquer, year after year.
Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health presenters share how their organizations responded to wildfires that caused their hospitals to evacuate in October 2017. The session details operational impacts as well as recovery efforts taken by both health systems to restore hospital services to the community. Presenters shared lessons learned from these events and highlight opportunities for improved performance.