Resources
HRSA Requirements
Community Health Centers are required by HRSA to create and maintain an Emergency Management Plan, per PIN 2007-15. Community Health Centers’ Emergency Management Plans should address four key areas:
- Mitigation: these are activities that lessen the severity and impact of a potential disaster or emergency that might have an impact on operations.
- Preparedness: these are activities that build capacity and identify resources that may be needed should a disaster or emergency occur.
- Response: this refers to the actual emergency and controls the negative effects of emergency situations.
- Recovery: actions that begin almost concurrently with response activities and are directed at restoring essential services and resuming normal operations.
To assist Health Centers in their implementation of an Emergency Management Plan, OPCA has developed a template to be used to help guide the creation of your own plan. This template should not be used as a stand-alone, rather, it should help your Health Center think about how to form and shape your own plan in order to meet the HRSA requirements outlined by PIN 2007-15.
Feel free to download it and adapt it to fit your needs:
Additionally, Health Centers should become well-versed on the usage of Hazard Vulnerability Assessments in order to identify key areas of vulnerability and weaknesses that should be mitigated and addressed through the Emergency Management Plan. This tool is a great way to continually improve the quality of your Emergency Planning and should be revisited at least annually.
If you should have any specific questions about your Emergency Planning process, please reach out to Sonya Howk.
