Emergency Preparedness

About Emergency Preparedness

It’s time to change the way California thinks about disaster response. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that hospitals can quickly mobilize to provide flexible approaches to patient care during a disaster. The state must draw upon these lessons to prepare differently so the next crisis will be less severe. Given California’s size and complexity, the health care disaster response system of the future must be nimble enough to respond to any catastrophe. View more information on hospital disaster preparedness.

Disaster Communications: An Overview

Maintaining open communication during a disaster is crucial to effective response. Learn more about primary communications channels and how to ensure hospitals have what they need to coordinate response.

Cyber Disruption Toolkit

Developed by the Greater New York Hospital Association, this guidance aims to assist hospitals in the development and implementation of strategies to mitigate cyber disruption impacts.

Certain Facility Types Must Report Respiratory Data to NHSN

What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will soon require certain facility types to electronically report COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus information through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).  

What else to know: The NHSN’s new Hospital Respiratory Data (HRD) module is currently available, and reporting is mandatory starting Nov. 1. Facilities are required to report either weekly or annually depending on their facility type. 

Enhancing Health Care Emergency Preparedness

2024 Disaster Conference

This session highlights recent resources and tools ASPR TRACIE developed in coordination with its subject matter expert, Cadre, in response to current hot topics in health care preparedness such as: cyber threats, hospital and regional patient surge management, pediatric resources, workforce shortages, utility outages, behavioral health and workforce resilience, and health care coalition engagement.

Managing Patients with Suspected Special Pathogens

2024 Disaster Conference

This presentation discusses the management of a patient with a special pathogen who presents to a front-line facility. The session reviews considerations for PPE selection, waste management, and enhanced infection control measures.

Understanding and Managing Hospital Surge

2024 Disaster Conference

This presentation delves into the critical issue of hospital surge and explores the various factors contributing increased patient volume, resource scarcity, and workforce shortages. Also discussed are the potential impacts of hospital surge on patient care quality, health care worker morale, and overall hospital operations.

Multi-Sector Collaborative Approach to Emergency Preparedness

2024 Disaster Conference

This presentation will demonstrate the importance of a multi-sector and community-based approach to Emergency Preparedness. It will include key steps to take to succeed at collaboration and highlight its importance by tying it to real world events. Attendees will learn simple steps that can be easily applied to help build collaborative efforts in the community.

A+ After-Action Reports

2024 Disaster Conference

Discover practical strategies for leveraging resources, technology, and emergency management expertise to streamline the AAR writing process. From exercises to real-life incidents, learn how to transform insights gathered into actionable recommendations that enhance organizational resilience.