This toolkit outlines resources and models for meeting the challenges of health care organizations during disaster scenarios. These scenarios often overwhelm hospital resources, necessitating the development of preparedness and response strategies. The guide covers the importance of proactive planning, partnership-building among stakeholders, and development of scalable response plans in hospital disaster planning.
Enacted by Congress in 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) guarantees public access to emergency services without regard to the ability to pay. Under Section 1867 of the Social Security Act, hospitals participating in Medicare and providing emergency services are mandated to conduct a medical screening examination upon request for evaluation or treatment of an emergency medical condition, including active labor, irrespective of the individual’s financial status.
2020 Virtual Disaster Conference
Emergency Managers from UC Health share their COVID-19 response experiences.
2021 Virtual Disaster Conference
This presentation focuses on the strategies used to redeploy physicians, as well as the training and mental health support provided by the program. Kaiser Permanente Northern California shares their redeployment strategies, including leveraging the interconnections of physicians within the KP Northern California health care system.
The pandemic has revealed weaknesses in the health care system and how we deliver care. The Emergency Department is often on the front line when making difficult decisions regarding care when resources become scarce. It is important to address this with education on crisis standards of care as well as scrutiny of existing models. This includes challenging how they are best designed to meet our current needs, where there might be crucial gaps in the assessment of need and delivery of care, and when they must be implemented.
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health care delivery systems world-wide by straining scarce resources, such as critical care therapeutics, hospital beds and clinical staff, necessitating drastic public health measures.
This session assists hospitals in evaluating their current response concepts, plans, and capabilities related to a medical surge of patients from an emerging infectious disease outbreak in the local community among community health care partners.