Entering a New Fiscal Year

There are a lot of exciting things happening within the coalition! Our partners are engaging with each other on a regular basis, we’re gaining new partners every month, and the coalition is working together to build standards and guidance to be used across the state. Some examples:

We are regularly engaging Long Term Care and Assisted Living facilities. This is important because this, often overlooked, population will greatly influence EMS and hospitals during an event. As the MHPC works to ensure that emergency planning isn’t occurring in a silo, these facilities are integral to the conversation.

A workgroup, made up of representatives from across the state, was developed last year to develop standards for Hospital First Receiver resources and training. They will continue their work this year and hope to roll out trials of the training and education prior to releasing it to the State.

A region-wide exercise is being developed by a workgroup made up of representatives from various agency types. This will ensure that every member of the coalition, whether a hospital, EMS system, Public Health, etc., will have the opportunity to participate. The scenario continues from the end of the 2014 Regional Exercise, a series of tornados which surged the hospitals, to now work towards recovery and return the region to normal operations.

FY 2015-2016 will be an exciting year, and we hope to continue to build our coalition’s disaster resilience to ever greater heights!