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Health Care Planning

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 Overview

Health-care providers will play a crucial role in the event of a pandemic. Planning for pandemic influenza is key. The following checklists, toolkit, and guidelines will assist health-care providers and service organizations in planning for a pandemic outbreak.

 Checklists

 Pandemic Influenza Toolkit

  • Pandemic Influenza Toolkit
    Prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the toolkit provides resources and information for clinicians to use in discussing pandemic influenza with patients and providing care in case of a flu pandemic in the United States.

 Guidelines

 Planning Guides

  • For State, local, community, and facility planners, this guide discusses ethical and legal issues, and considerations regarding prehospital care, hospital/acute care, palliative care, and alternative care sites. Chapter 8 is a 29-page case study for a flu pandemic.
  • Altered Standards of Care in Mass Casualty Events (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality )
    Report from an expert panel convened by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness to discuss planning for emergency heath and medical care standards to ensure that the health care provided in a public health emergency such as pandemic influenza results in saving as many lives as possible.
  • A model to enable community health call centers, such as poison control centers, nurse advice lines and other hotlines, to support home-management and shelter-in-place approaches in public health emergency events such as pandemic influenza.
  • To support State and local planning for a public health emergency, the Atlas includes 1) maps illustrating the size range and distribution of nursing homes and hospitals relative to preparedness regions for six case-study States, and 2) 51 State-specific maps showing the location and size of nursing homes and hospitals serving the resident population.
  • Health Emergency Assistance Line and Triage Hub (HEALTH) Model (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality )
    Designed to minimize surges in patient demand on the health care delivery system during a public health emergency. Helps planners determine the requirements, specifications, and resources needed for developing an emergency contact center such as the HEALTH model. Includes a Contact Center Assessment Tool Set that will calculate the numbers of a constituent population that may try to reach a public health agency during a bioterrorism or emergency event.
  • Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources: A Community Planning Guide (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality )
    Provides community planners--as well as institutional, State, and Federal planners--with information on planning for and responding to a public health emergency such as pandemic influenza. Written by leading experts in six areas related to mass casualty care: prehospital care, hospital and acute care, alternative care sites, palliative care, ethical issues, and legal considerations.
  • A demonstration model exploring the feasibility of a national real-time hospital-bed tracking system to address a surge of patients during a public health emergency.
  • An interactive cross-training program to teach non-respiratory therapy health care professionals to provide basic respiratory care and ventilator management in a public health emergency such as pandemic influenza. (DVD: Description and ordering information.)
  • Originally published in the Journal of Professional Nursing. Although nursing is not the only health profession experiencing a workforce shortage, nursing is vital to any large-scale demand for care. Agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services have been working to address readiness and response capabilities in health care professions including nursing, but private organizations and professional associations also have a role to play.
  • Reopening Shuttered Hospitals to Expand Surge Capacity (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality )
    Designed to help public health officials and hospital and health facility staff determine how best to choose and use a closed or partially closed hospital or health facility to expand surge capacity in advance of a public health emergency. (Includes Surge Toolkit and Facilities Checklist)
  • To help State and local officials quickly locate alternative care sites if hospitals are overwhelmed by patients during a public health emergency such as pandemic influenza.