Unlike major urban centers, rural areas face unique challenges associated with emergency medical response. Emergency communications personnel in rural communities require the appropriate training and expertise for medical and non-medical response. Recognizing these challenges, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) established the Rural Emergency Medical Communications Demonstration Project (REMCDP) to help rural communities examine barriers and identify solutions that help improve the delivery of rural medical care. The latest National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) Spotlight examines specific REMCDP accomplishments and its relationship to the NECP, the Nation’s strategic plan for enhancing and strengthening emergency communications capabilities.
Through REMCDP, the First Hands Program was established and combined medical and land mobile radio communications education with hands-on exercises to empower first responders providing rural medical care. This program also helped address NECP implementation gaps and improve overall understanding of communications in rural communities.
To read more about the NECP and to stay up to date on the latest NECP publications, please visit cisa.gov/publication/2019-national-emergency-communications-plan. If you have questions or want to share your organization’s successes in alignment with the NECP, please contact NECP@cisa.dhs.gov.