Pandemic Influenza Plan - Questar III

Section 3: Healthcare Planning and Emergency Response
o Essential medical services – identify those services that must be
maintained (e.g., dialysis) and develop a plan to ensure their
continuance.
• Educate and train staff on Surge Plan; conduct and evaluate drills on
Surge Plan.
Local Health Departments:
• Recruit volunteers that could be used to enhance hospital staffing.
• Identify space in the community that could be used as an alternative
non-traditional care site.
• Ensure that key staff members have current HPN accounts and that an
adequate number of staff is trained and assigned roles in HERDS.
State Health Department:
• Assess capacity and capability of health care and emergency response
systems to meet needs in a pandemic.
• Develop HERDS templates in anticipation of resource needs in a
pandemic.
Pandemic Period
Hospitals:
• Implement emergency response plans to rapidly identify changing
patterns of need and modify or redirect policy accordingly.
• Request local OEM to activate and deploy volunteers as necessary.
• Implement pandemic response activities.
• As needed, request LHD and OEM to establish inpatient medical care in
non-traditional facilities to provide hospital bed surge capacity.
• Report any resource needs via HERDS.
Local Health Departments:
• Coordinate the activation of HERDS with the NYSDOH.
• Work with the NYSDOH and other members of the OEM Health Desk
within the incident command structure to review and make
recommendations regarding the priority of healthcare resource requests.
• Work with local OEM to establish non-traditional care sites if necessary.
• Recommend activation and deployment of volunteers to local OEM to
assist facilities.
State Health Department:
• Coordinate the activation of HERDS with the LHD.
• Work with the LHD and other members of the OEM Health Desk within
the incident command structure to review and make recommendations
regarding the priority of healthcare resource requests.
February 7, 2006 3-29