Emergency Preparedness
Intro/ overview
Public Health Emergency Preparedness: The capability of systems to prepare and respond to health emergencies.
What constitutes a public health emergency?
What does PHEP require?
Who is involved in PHEP?
What is a public health emergency?
Emergent= consequences overcome the community's ability to address them.
Defined by consequences and precipitatinf events
What does PHEP require?
Prevention, mitigation, AND recovery
operational capabilities: quickly execute preparedness tasks
Continuous improvement through frequent testing
Who is involved?
Governmental agencies, community residents, businesses, and NGOs
A large % of response, such as search and rescue, is provided by civillians before the arrival of first responders
"Coordinated efforts"
After the anthrax attacks, over $5 billion has been contributed towards better public health measures. However, it has not necessarily shown to be much help. This is due to unclear definitions of goals, and an unsuccessful method of maintaining accountability. This makes it difficult to measure change.
Extra
Crosscutting themes: PHEP should build upon infrastructure that already exists- not something new
Elements
Should also involve scalable responses
Expert/fully-staffed workforce
Quality improvement
Preplanned and coordinated rapid response capability