Preparedness - KCHC

Coalition Workgroup & Project
Updates Continued
Family Assistance & Patient Tracking Planning
• The Patient Tracking Steering Committee is developing a concept of operations for
patient tracking including identifying minimum data points for different phases of
response and roles and responsibilities of EMS, hospitals and other partner
agencies. The concept of operations is anticipated to be finished by late fall 2011.
• The Family Assistance Planning team is in the process of developing guidance and
recommendations for hospitals to develop plans for family reception/family
information centers.
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Hospital Planning
• The King County Hospital Emergency Response Plan has been updated and
submitted to the Department of Health as a grant deliverable in June 2011.
• Assessing hospitals' surge capacity and capabilities for managing an influx of
patients was a priority for planning in 2010-2011. Based on a series of
standardized site visits and assessments, all hospitals in the region have identified
additional spaces and strategies within their facilities to accommodate a surge
of patients, creating substantially increased regional capacity.
In Home Services Planning
• The Coalition Staff has drafted an In Home Services Regional Emergency Response
Plan which is being reviewed by the group; comments are due by August 29, 2011.
The plan will be adapted primarily for King County but will also be shared at a
statewide level.
Long Term Care Planning
The Nursing Home Steering Committee recently joined together to contact all
members of the Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan in order to promote wider
participation in WATrac and remind participants to update their agency emergency
contacts in WATrac. The committee continues to actively recruit more members for
the group, especially those with clinical expertise.
Mass Fatality Planning
The mass fatality planning team has finalized guidelines for all types of healthcare
organizations in King County on Mass Fatality Management. The mass fatality
planning team has also created a standardized Mass Fatality Plan template for all
healthcare organizations to use for internal planning, which integrates into the King
County All Hazards Mass Fatality Plan.
Pediatric Planning
• In order to support hospitals in implementing the Regional Pediatric Plan, the
Pediatric Taskforce and the Coalition team are currently implementing a region
wide “pediatric toolkit”. King County hospitals with emergency departments are
currently involved in building their internal pediatric emergency response
capacities and capabilities, including identifying physician and nursing leadership
and incorporating length-based "color-coding" in routine pediatric medical
management for appropriate weight-based medication and equipment decisions.
Volunteer Management System
• In May the Corps received a request from the Surgeon Generals office to help
medical volunteers connect with the Red Cross who needed support due to the
floods and tornadoes in the south and Midwest. Two King County EMT’s and one
RN were deployed as Red Cross volunteers in Joplin.
• The Public Health Reserve Corps is currently at 382 adding about 10 new volunteers
per month.
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