Welcome to the latest issue of The Lowdown. COVID-19 has brought emergency preparedness to the forefront of medical care, but emergency preparedness is necessary for more than just infectious disease. How prepared is your facility for any emergency, internal or external? This issue is dedicated to emergency preparedness. Happy reading!
What is Emergency Preparedness?
Emergency preparedness is more than a binder of policies and procedures sitting on a shelf. Your emergency preparedness program is your guide to navigate an emergency or natural disaster, such as severe weather, an active shooter, or infectious disease outbreak. Emergency preparedness helps you meet the health, safety, and security needs of staff and residents during the situation.2
Pennsylvania Healthcare Coalition
The Pennsylvania Department of Health defines a healthcare coalition as “a formal collaboration among healthcare organizations and public and private partners that is organized to prepare for, respond to, and recover from an emergency, mass casualty, or catastrophic event.”3
CMS Regulations
On September 8, 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published in the Federal Register the Emergency Preparedness Requirements for Medicare and Medicaid Participating Providers and Suppliers (final rule § 483.73), requiring long-term care (LTC) facilities to have an emergency preparedness plan. Effective November 15, 2017, LTC facilities must develop and maintain an emergency preparedness plan that must be reviewed and updated at least annually.4
Where Do I Start?
Steps to creating an effective emergency preparedness program:5
Assemble a team
- Conduct an all-hazards risk assessment
- Establish performance objectives
- Create a written plan
—Performance objectives are quantifiable and tangible milestones to assist in staying on track as you develop your emergency preparedness program
- Plan must be based on an all-hazards risk assessment; include strategies for addressing the events identified by the risk assessment; include a communication plan; address resident population and continuity of operations; and include a process for collaboration with local, state, and federal agencies5.
- Educate and provide training
- Initial and annual education and training required
- Conduct exercises to evaluate the plan
—Facility must conduct exercises to test the emergency plan at least twice per year, including unannounced staff drills3
What is My Role as an Infection Preventionist?
Infectious disease outbreaks and transmission can occur during or following any type of disaster. The greatest risk of transmission occurs during a disaster involving an infectious disease or agent, such as a bioterrorism attack, outbreak of an emerging infectious disease, or pandemic. Natural disasters also can have a significant health impact if infection prevention strategies are not implemented. Natural disasters, such as a hurricane or flood, may require opening shelters to house displaced people. This can result in infectious disease outbreaks due to overcrowding and the lack of hand hygiene or infection prevention procedures in shelters.6
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Emergency Preparedness Committee identified nine domains that describe the role of the infection preventionist (IP) in emergency preparedness: knowledge of disasters and emergency management, assessing readiness and emergency managementplans,infection prevention coverage,participation indisasterresponse and recovery, healthcare policy development, surveillance, patient management, physical plant issues, and IP as educator. It is important that IPs are involved in the development of the emergency preparedness program and have a personal/family response plan so that they are prepared to assist during mass casualty incident response and recovery.4
PSA for the Assist!
In response to requests from facilities for assistance with emergency preparedness, Patient Safety Authority (PSA) infection preventionists have been working diligently to develop education and tools to meet facilities’ needs.
- Emergency Preparedness Educational Webinar Series: This educational series consists of a monthly, 30-minute webinar to be held on the second Thursday of each month at 12:30 p.m. from February 2022 through November 2022. Additional information on the webinar series is available at http://patientsafety.pa.gov/AuthorityEvents/Documents/EmergencyPr eparednessWebinarFlyer.pdf?csf=1&e=9sHBSv.
PSA is asking facilities to complete an emergency preparedness survey prior to the start of the webinar series to assist the PSA infection preventionists in identifying common problems and opportunities for improvement: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EmergencyPreparednessSurvey2022.
References
- Department of Homeland Security. Plan and Prepare for Disasters. DHS website.
- https://www.dhs.gov/plan-and-prepare-disasters. Published June 19, 2012.
- Accessed December 6, 2021.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergency Preparedness and Re- sponse. CDC website. https://emergency.cdc.gov/. Updated March 19, 2020. Accessed December 6, 2021.
- Pennsylvania Department of Health. Emergency Preparedness – Healthcare Coali- tion. DOH website. https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/prep/Pages/HCC.aspx. Accessed December 6, 2021.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule. CMS website. https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Cer- tification/SurveyCertEmergPrep/Emergency-Prep-Rule. Updated December 1, 2021. Accessed December 6, 2021.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. TRACIE Healthcare Information Preparedness Gateway. HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response website. https://files.asprtracie.hhs.gov/documents/aspr-tracie-cms-ep- rule-long-term-care.pdf. Published 2019. Updated March 26, 2021. Accessed
- December 6, 2021.
- Rebmann T, 2008 APIC Emergency Preparedness Committee. APIC State-of-the- Art Report: The Role of the Infection Preventionist in Emergency Management. Am J Infect Control. 2009;37(4):271-281. doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2008.12.002
