Wildfires, landslides and influenza surge are only some of the incidents to hit California hospitals this past year. The initial response to an emergency begins with recognition that an incident may (or has) occurred.

In cases where the incident is likely to impact or disrupt routine operations, and may require coordination of efforts and response involvement among hospitals, Health Care Coalition partners, EMS, public health, and environmental health.

Key management issues involving situational status, incident characteristics and resource capabilities must be quickly determined and communicated amongst response partners in order to establish a common operating picture.

CHA’s Hospital Preparedness Program has developed a tool to help hospitals activate their Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) in the Hospital Activation of the Emergency Operations Plan Checklist with step-by-step instructions for activation and Hospital Incident Command System (HICSⁱ) roles.

helpful tool providing cybersecurity information and resources for health care organizations, tools to assist with gap analysis and state support systems, a mitigation checklist, and suggestions for where to report cyberattacks, as well as share information.

Hospital Cybersecurity Planning Quick Reference Tool

The toolkit was developed to provide guidance to hospitals in planning for and documenting emergency food supplies as mandated by regulatory requirements. These resources were developed for use by hospital Food Services directors and/or hospital dietitians. Hospital Emergency planners should also review and become familiar with these documents for joint planning purposes.

Users should first print the following attachments prior to viewing the video presentation:

* The Emergency Food Calculation Tool is fully functional as posted, and no passwords are required to use the form. However, if users attempt data entry within a (blue) calculation cell, a password required message will appear. These cells are purposefully locked to prevent users from overriding the formulas that drive the tool. Users should only enter values into pink cells. Blue cells cannot be edited.

This tool is designed to assist hospitals in evaluating and enhancing their surge capacity planning efforts. It provides a comprehensive list of key components of surge planning, including staffing, space, supplies, communication, patient care, quality, training, and exercises.

The checklist helps hospitals assess their readiness to manage increased patient volumes during emergencies or disasters and identify areas for improvement in surge response capabilities.

Hospital Surge Planning Checklist

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, the Hospital Code Silver Activation Active Shooter Planning Checklist was released. The checklist supports hospital efforts to review and develop active shooter response plans. The tool was developed with key advisement from agencies including FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security and the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.

Download the Hospital Code Silver Activation – Active Shooter Planning Checklist

This tool was was developed by the CHA Hospital Preparedness Program to assist hospitals in development, implementation and evaluation of their exercises.

Individual exercises are part of an Exercise and Evaluation Cycle under the hospital’s Emergency Management Program. These exercises may be isolated within the hospital, or part of a larger community, or even statewide, exercise such as the California Statewide Medical Health Exercise. It is the intent of the checklist to provide an overview, guidance and resources for hospitals which allows a more coordinated effort and can be tailored to the facility.

Exercise Program for Hospitals Checklist

Developed by the CHA Hospital Preparedness Program and is intended to be used as one of several tools to assist in preparation for H1N1/Seasonal Influenza.

Download the H1N1/Seasonal Influenza Preparedness Checklist

This tool is designed to assist hospitals in the development of an Incident Action Plan (IAP) for each Operational Period. The IAP is a process which uses a combination of Hospital Incident Command System (HICSⁱ) Forms; it is minimally comprised of HICS 201 Incident Briefing, HICS 202 Incident Objectives, HICS 203 Organization Assignment List, HICS 204 Branch Assignment List, and HICS 215A Incident Action Safety Analysis.

Download the CHA IAP Checklist (2014 update)

The attached Guidelines for Developing Best Practices to Assist California Hospitals in Preparing for and Responding to a Water Disruption may be used for any hospital water disruption planning activities.

These guidelines were drafted under the CHA Hospital Preparedness Program with participation from a work group which was comprised of hospital representatives and state regulatory agencies.

The guidelines address:

Overview of a hospital water disruption
The hospital water supply planning team
Conducting a water use audit
Role of California Regulatory Agencies in a water disruption
Water disruption standards and regulations
Coordinating with the community response to a water disruption

The guidelines contain links to federal and state references and include six attachments which provide additional information and check lists to assist hospitals with water disruption planning and response.

Toolkit downloads:

Attached is an updated tool for hospitals, Hospital Repopulation after Evacuation Guidelines and Checklist. The purpose of the document is to identify hospital operational and safety best practices, as well as regulatory agency requirements, which must be considered when repopulating after full or partial evacuation of general acute care hospital inpatient building(s) (GACHB). The association sought consultation from a number of State agencies prior to publishing this document.

The initiative to develop Repopulation Guidelines was undertaken to identify factors and steps that will allow an evacuated hospital to return to normal operations as quickly as possible. While events and circumstances may vary, efforts focused on identification of State agency requirements and the basic steps that must be considered to meet those requirements.

The Repopulation Guidelines should be used to review and update hospital Evacuation and Shelter in Place plans, as necessary, to ensure that they are consistent and to allow the hospital to consider repopulation requirements prior to evacuation.

Should you have any questions please feel free to contact Mary Massey.

There is no one standard format for an Emergency Management Program (EMP). The Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is one component of the EMP. This tool provides guidance for hospitals regarding the components included in an EMP.

Download the Hospital Emergency Management Program Checklist developed by CHA

This diagram is intended for use in context to the TJC 2009 EM Standards. (Note that the term “Emergency Management Plan” is no longer in TJC EM Standards or a part of NIMS terminology.) This tool was developed by CHA’s Hospital Preparedness Program.

Download the EMP Diagram

This checklist provides guidance in the development or update of a hospital evacuation plan containing detailed information, instructions, and procedures that can be engaged in any emergency situation necessitating either full or partial hospital evacuation, as well as sheltering in place.

The expectation will be that staff may need to accompany patients and work in staging areas, in local government Alternative Care Sites (ACS) and/or at receiving facilities, subject to receiving proper emergency credentials. Drills, training and reviews must be conducted to ensure that staff have a working knowledge of the plan and to ensure that the plan is workable.

The hospital evacuation plan should be consistent with federal NIMS and The Joint Commission requirements.

Download the Hosptial Evacuation Checklist developed by CHA

Attached is the Shelter-In-Place (SIP) Planning Checklist developed by CHA. The tool includes a decision-making algorithm for SIP and evacuation activation.

The Checklist and decision tree may be used to assist hospitals with developing, reviewing or updating their plans. Updated hospital evacuation plans and shelter in place protocols that document a hospital’s critical decision making processes are a Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) Year 7 requirement.

The document was developed as a tool to help hospitals ensure that elements listed have been addressed in their plans, policies and procedures.

The “Reference” column is to allow each hospital to note where in their documentation each item is addressed. The decision tree is to allow you to consider the critical decision making factors. This is a Tool for the hospital, and is not for submission to the County.

It is important to note that there are a number of situations or events that may require or lead a hospital to decide to shelter in place and, therefore, to plan in advance for those situations. Please also note that your plan should include what happens to those “locked out” when you are “locked down” (identify a sheltering site(s) outside of locked-down facilities). Also note that SIP differs depending on the type of event.

Coordination of the facility mass fatality plan with county/region mass fatality planning must occur to provide better community response. Education, training and exercises must be conducted to ensure that staff have a working knowledge of the plan and to ensure that the plan is workable. The hospital mass fatality plan should be consistent with state and local regulations, National Incident Management System and The Joint Commission requirements.

CHA Mass Fatality Checklist (CHA 2008)

CHA Mass Fatality Table of Contents / Appendix (April 2011)

CHA Mass Fatality Checklist