HERSHEY – Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center will lead southcentral Pennsylvania’s Health Care Facilities Partnership Program in a one-year, $2.5 million, collaborative effort to address gaps in regional preparedness for public health emergencies, such as pandemic flu. The Health Care Facilities Partnership of South Central PA, supported by a federal grant, will build on the experience of the region’s 17 acute care hospitals, various other emergency management agencies and three primary care clinics.
Within one year, the project hopes to create a model for communities across the country to begin addressing their own public health emergency preparedness needs.
“Nationally, medical care providers tend to be more competitive than collaborative, but that’s not the case here in this part of the state,” said Thomas Terndrup, professor and chair of emergency medicine, Medical Center, and Health Care Facilities Partnership director. “We are one of just 10 institutions nationally to receive an award from this grant program, and it is partly because we have a history of regional collaboration to build on.”
Southcentral Pennsylvania is uniquely prepared to handle terrorism-related mass disasters, thanks in part to at least 10 years of partnering among the region’s public health and safety management agencies through the South Central Pennsylvania Counter-terrorism Task Force (SCTF) and the Emergency Health System Federation. But last June, a series of pandemic influenza drills led by SCTF identified important gaps in regional preparedness for public health emergencies.
Under the Health Care Facilities Partnership Program, partner institutions will work in four teams — education and development, technology and simulation, evaluation and integration, and surge — to improve surge and lessen identifiable weaknesses. The teams will develop a Web portal as a communication tool among the partners and to provide training throughout the project. They will use high-fidelity simulation and live training exercises to identify areas for improvement and determine best methods of practice. The project will increase regional collaboration and provide an opportunity to augment existing Medical Mutual Aid agreements, as well as to revamp the methods for communicating among agencies and recruiting credentialed health-care volunteers during a public emergency.
A unique strength of the project’s design is its reproducibility. The diversity of the southcentral Pennsylvania region means the techniques and exercises developed should translate well to many communities across the country, whether small town, rural area or urban center.