The next challenge in healthcare preparedness: catastrophic health events.

摘要

In 2007, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted with the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC (the Center) to conduct a 2-year, comprehensive assessment of the HHS Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), from the time of its establishment in 2002 through mid-2007, and to develop recommendations for improving and evaluating future hospital preparedness efforts. This document, The Next Challenge in Healthcare Preparedness: Catastrophic Health Events (Preparedness Report), is the third major deliverable of this project. Prior to completing this Preparedness Report, the Center submitted to HHS its Evaluation Report (delivered March 2009). A key finding of the Evaluation Report was that, while much progress has been made in healthcare preparedness for common medical disasters, the U.S. healthcare system is ill prepared for catastrophic health events (CHE), and there is as yet no clear strategy that will enable an effective response to such an event. For this report, the definition of "catastrophic health event" is that put forth in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21 (HSPD-21): an event that could result in tens or hundreds of thousands of sick or injured individuals who would require access to healthcare resources.