Highlights Tools and Resources to Help Communities Prepare for Hurricane Season HHS: Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response National Preparedness Month Presidential Proclamation for National Preparedness Month, 2008

National Preparedness Month: Tools and Models for Planning and Preparedness

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September is National Preparedness Month. AHRQ's role in national preparedness efforts is to conduct and support health services research and develop the tools and resources that States and communities can use to improve public health preparedness.

New Tools

• Tool for Evaluating Core Elements of Hospital Disaster Drills: Use to identify the most important strengths and weaknesses of disaster drills.
• Home Health Care During an Influenza Pandemic: Issues and Resources: Standardize evaluation of disaster drills to identify areas for improvement and track changes over time.

Featured Tools and Models

• Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources: A Community Planning Guide: Know the ethical and legal considerations and issues related to pre-hospital, hospital, alternative, and palliative care when allocating scarce resources during a public health emergency.
• Adapting Community Call Centers for Crisis Support: Use existing community call centers to disseminate critical information during a manmade or natural disaster.
• Emergency Preparedness Resource Inventory (EPRI): A model to inventory resources needed to respond to a public health emergency at the local or regional level.
• Decontamination of Children: Preparedness and Response for Hospital Emergency Departments: Video: A 27-minute video demonstrating how to safely decontaminate children exposed to hazardous chemicals or a bioterrorist attack.
• Rocky Mountain Regional Care Model for Bioterrorist Events: Locate alternate health care sites at the State or local level when hospitals are overwhelmed during public health emergencies.

More Resources

AHRQ has more than 60 emergency preparedness-related tools and related products. Go to: http://www.ahrq.gov/prep/.

Coming Soon

Look for information on upcoming AHRQ public health emergency preparedness Web casts. Sign up on AHRQ's Public Health Emergency Preparedness E-mail Update for timely updates.

Current as of September 2008