Care For PA

While hospitals have always had disaster plans in place, events such as September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and the threat of a pandemic flu have raised the bar for emergency preparedness across Pennsylvania as well as the nation.

Combining their community-focused missions of caring with the integral roles they play in their communities, hospitals are taking the challenge of emergency preparedness seriously. During the five years since September 11, 2001, hospitals have invested significant time, money, and resources to upgrade their emergency preparedness capabilities; and because of those focused efforts, have strengthened their ability to respond to public health emergencies.

Though each hospital is different; overall, hospitals have upgraded and tested emergency preparedness plans, trained clinical and support staff, maintained and replaced disaster response equipment and supplies, enhanced communication and surveillance capabilities, and enabled better patient transport and care. These processes and protocols enable hospitals to quickly organize manpower, call in support, organize patient treatment plans and locations, procure and organize needed equipment and supplies, and coordinate with other facilities.

In addition, hospitals have come together with other community partners--such as local governments, public health officials, emergency management, police, fire departments, other medical care providers, as well as others--forging collaborations that once were rare. These collaborations have not only improved the effectiveness and efficiency for emergency response efforts, but are also useful for responding to other emergencies, such as infectious disease outbreaks and distributing flu vaccines.

Hospitals have done all of this with one goal: to strengthen their ability to provide care to their community at all times. However, the often-unpredictable nature and timing of disasters requires hospitals to be capable of responding to a variety of potential events at any time. And experts agree that the daunting array of possible threats--from chemical to nuclear to biological--are challenging even to the best planners.

Some of these challenges include:

• Capacity--Concern about hospitals having standby capacity to handle a sudden spike of patients in a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or epidemic. Large hospitals, especially those that anchor community safety nets, often operate at or near capacity, so their ability to serve a large influx of critical patients may be limited.


• Staff Shortages--Concern about hospitals, which may already be experiencing staff shortages in several areas, ability to handle a sudden spike of patients in an emergency. In addition, though the men and women of America's hospitals are among the most dedicated workers around, disasters cut power, destroy homes, and often make bridges and roads impassable, further exacerbating the challenge of adequate staffing.


• Funding--In 2002-2003 alone, Pennsylvania hospitals reported spending more than $13.7 million on emergency preparedness and planned to spend $28.7 million in 2004. As hospitals spend money to prepare, total public health and hospital preparedness funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Health Resources and Services Administration has actually decreased, leaving already financially-burdened hospitals responsible for much of the cost.


• Competing Priorities--Hospitals are challenged with balancing emergency preparedness activities with other important community and public health initiatives, such as such as smoking cessation; maternal and child health; health disparities; dental care access; cancer prevention; prevention activities related to asthma, diabetes, and obesity; as well as responding to outbreaks of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS, and West Nile Virus.

Despite these challenges, Pennsylvania hospitals' are steadfastly working to ensure their communities are healthy and strong at all times. And even though hospitals today are better prepared for emergency situations than they were five years ago, more work remains to be done. As Pennsylvania hospitals continue to prepare, you can play a role as well. Check the information on the right and ensure that you are doing your part.

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