News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 27, 2007

Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343

HHS Awards Health Care Facilities Partnership Program Grants

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced health care facilities partnership program grants to eleven health care partnerships totaling $18.1 million. Selected through a competitive process each grantee presented a program designed to enhance community and hospital preparedness for public health emergencies.

“The goal of the new program is to develop innovative and creative projects that can be replicated across the country,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response RADM Craig Vanderwagen, M.D., USPHS. “These partnerships will require close coordination among health officials from state, local and private sectors.”

The projects selected to receive grants are focused on:

Planning for the surge of patients and its regional impact during major public health emergencies
Improving regional public health emergency coordination through innovative approaches to training, communications and new software; or
Developing and conducting functional public health emergency exercises to evaluate community and hospital preparedness.

The 11 lead grant recipients for each partnership project and their grant amounts are:

Massachusetts Emergency Preparedness Regions 4 A,B,C with the Boston University School of Public Health	$2.4 million
King County Healthcare Coalition, Washington	$1.9 million
San Francisco City and County Community Hub Plan	$787,000
The Roper St. Francis Foundation, Charleston, South Carolina	$2.5 million
North Broward Hospital District, Fort Lauderdale, Florida	$426,000
Pennsylvania State University Hershey Medical Center	$2.5 million
WakeMed Health Care System, Raleigh, NC	$1 million
Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department, Neb.	$868,000
Hennepin Healthcare System Minneapolis, Minn.	$2.5 million
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services	$742,000
New York State Department of Health	$2.5 million

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Last revised: January 12, 2009