ASPR leads the nation’s public health and medical response to emergencies under Emergency Support Function 8 (ESF8) of the National Response Framework, leading a federal response in support of state partners during a disaster. Through a robust exercise system and lessons learned process, as well as through careful stewardship of resources, the federal capability for preparedness, response, and recovery has steadily improved; additional work remains to make it a nimbler, more modern capability ready to serve an increasingly diverse population.
The future of the federal public health and medical preparedness, response, and recovery system is a “whole community” approach that focuses on institutionalizing resilience: building practices nationally that focus on local institutions; creating a fundamental body of preparedness, response, and recovery knowledge; and encouraging innovative grassroots efforts to build the nation’s capacity to stabilize and recover from an event. All aspects of a community – public and private sectors, faith- and community-based organizations, individual community members - must work together to develop collective approaches for preparedness, response, and recovery. In all of the below strategies, the Federal Government must ensure that its approach considers all populations in a community – including children and at-risk individuals - together as a coherent whole.
Strategies
- Integrate national, regional, and state response and recovery frameworks for health security, ensuring that the public health and medical components are integrated
- Improve the nimbleness and effectiveness of response by
- Improving the management and use of ESF8 responders through determining the public health and medical specialties needed and recruiting accordingly
- Providing behavioral health training to responders in the National Disaster Medical System
- Enhancing logistical capabilities to support a more effective response
- Developing a more informed response capability through innovative use of emerging technologies
- Assisting partners in building public health emergency preparedness and response capacity internationally
- Coordinating with domestic and international partners during a response, including providing policy advice and logistics support for international assistance
- Align strategic priorities among federal entities that fund preparedness grants by spearheading a grants alignment process
- Enhance coordination on preparedness among regional HHS partners by
- Establishing a senior headquarters Regional Advisory Committee to provide guidance on regional preparedness, response, and recovery policy and to provide ideas for pooling regional resources
- Developing a consistent national framework on regional coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery activities
- Ensure timely and effective communications among responders and with the public by
- Improving communications within and across response organizations
- Establishing mechanisms for regular information exchange with the public through multiple media
- Ensuring the timely release of accurate, credible, understandable, accessible, and actionable information
- Proactively messaging the vision for preparedness before an event
- Develop a common national approach to situational awareness for national health security and work toward a near real time awareness of evolving health incidents and availability of health care system resources
- Incorporate post-incident health recovery into planning and response by
- Establishing a recovery coordination office within ASPR
- Supporting the development of the health components of the National Disaster Recovery Framework, including defining post-incident health recovery and identifying roles and responsibilities for HHS agencies
- Leveraging technologies to enhance recovery
- Identify and promote best practices for behavioral health disaster response and recovery by developing and implementing Concepts of Operations for behavioral health response and recovery, monitoring their use, and incorporating into the after action process
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