Pandemic Influenza Plan - Questar III

Appendix 13-C
• Surge Capacity - beds, staffing, supplies, pharmaceuticals, antidotes, blood, antibiotics;
needs and availability.
• Event-related Data - numbers of patients seen, waiting to be seen, unidentified, or deceased.
• Patient Locator System - a database containing the name, gender, and date of service for
patients seen in area hospitals as a result of a disaster.
In December 2001, GNYHA approached the New York State Health Department (NYSDOH) to
develop a statewide system and to deploy it on its secure, Commerce (Health Provider Network
(HPN)) internet portal where it could integrate with the Commerce established architecture for
communications and data sharing, including its communications directory (contact information),
automated notification system, secure discussion forum, disease reporting, and GIS and SAS
analyses capacities. JCAHO cited this collaborative effort in 2003 publication on Strategies for
Creating and Sustaining Community-wide Emergency preparedness.
HERDS was first deployed the NY City Metro Area July 2, 2002 as a preparedness measure for
the holiday weekend. In May 2003, the NY State Commissioner of Health Promulgated the
HERDS system, NYSDOH HAN and Communications Directory as the official health response
system for NY State. HERDS is currently in routine use by public health and health facilities
statewide(Table one ), including: drills in Metro NY City and rural areas of Upstate NY using
scenarios ranging from Bioterrorism to SARS Outbreak and support of SNS activation; statewide
preparedness surveys for elevated threat levels and potential natural disasters; statewide capacity
assessments such as Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms; ongoing Epidemiological surveillance
such as flu surveillance; public health resource assessment such as in response to the vaccine
shortage. It provided cross-jurisdictional linkage between states to support the Republican
National Convention (RNC) in NY City, August 2004. It was also used extensively in support of
the 2004-2005 Influenza vaccine shortage, collecting statewide vaccine needs, staff vaccination
status of very hospital in the state (235 facilities) within 24 hours. During the RNC the regional
response portal established on the NYS Health commerce system used its HERDS interface to
provide event decision makers with real-time access to the complete asset inventory (blood
supplies, pharmaceutical inventory, vents, beds, surge, staff, PPE, data communications
equipment, ED traffic, patient loading/Bed availability, event patient symptoms) of every
hospital in the state at their fingertips.
HERDS supports the incident command process, providing a vertical and horizontal hierarchical
flow of information from health facilities to local/regional and state health jurisdictions, and
other response partners. Administrator roles create, store and deploy electronic surveys,
surveillance and incident response actions within their respective jurisdictions without
programming. Electronic roles within the workflow process and affected jurisdictions are
automatically alerted on activation. Roles and contact information are derived from a central
directory, maintained by participant organizations.
Components of the system – (see Table One for HERDS usage to date)
• Surveys – capability for rapidly deployed, immediate ad hoc surveys of targeted resources
and assets, such as pharmaceutical, AIIR and influenza vaccine, power and food supplies.
• Emergency Incidents -- Provides a generalized mechanism for creation and deployment of
web based electronic reporting forms to health facilities during emergency incidents.
Creation of a customized reporting form with edit checks requires no programming. Forms
can be stored as templates and modified as required over time for reuse. Many different
forms may be deployed simultaneously to different groups of facilities for different
emergencies as needed.
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