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Case : Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response: Contingency Planning
Synopsis
The Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response was established by the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) in 2002. The Center’s mission is to develop and deliver services that improve healthcare planning, preparedness, and response for emergency events and disasters. It is responsible for identifying the status of emergency preparedness within the three YNHHS member hospitals (Yale-New Haven Hospital, Bridgeport Hospital, and Greenwich Hospital); preparing YNHHS to respond effectively to emergency preparedness and disaster response issues; providing leadership to healthcare delivery organizations (e.g., acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, community health centers, home health agencies, urgent care centers, emergency medical service providers, and community medical practices) and their workforce regarding emergency preparedness and disaster response issues; serving as a model for emergency preparedness and disaster response initiatives at the national and international levels; and advising statewide and national legislative and nongovernmental organizations on the development of standards and policies for emergency preparedness and disaster response in healthcare delivery organizations. These objectives are achieved through a complex of web of partnerships with healthcare delivery organizations, professional health associations, and agencies on the local, state, regional, national, and international levels. This case study focuses on the intricacies of contingency planning and disaster recovery planning.
Questions
1a) Why is an integrated planning approach necessary for building healthcare capacity and providing a coordinated response to emergencies and disasters?
b) What is a needs assessment? What role did this play in the center’s ability to provide disaster planning, education and training, clinical strategies, and logistical solutions to Connecticut’s healthcare delivery infrastructure?
Expert Answer
a) Integrated health system is an important reason to that sustains any healthcare system. It provides-
1) Wide-range of Services across the Gamut of healthcare-
The principle of integrated health system enhances the scope of clinical and health-related services. It adopts the responsibility to plan and coordinate all core services among the field of health and aims at serving the population at large. It becomes feasible due to combined efforts of healthcare and social welfare organizations.
2)Patient Focus
A huge number of patients are attended and cared due to integration system. It caters to extensive range of patients’ needs in attaining earlier recovery and satisfaction.
3) Standardization in healthcare system
It brings standardization in the process of healthcare, teams are updated due to inter professional staffs, and segregated knowledge is assimilated to provide speedier recovery to patients. It provides a one stop solution to the patients’ worries and problems which proves to be more than beneficial to them.
b) Needs assessment could be defined as a process of identification of that thin line between what we want or desire and what the actually requisite of a person is. What is the current position of a person and what he yearns to achieve is determined through a needs assessment.
It plays a vital role in accomplishing the above mentioned factors which is essential for an effective integrated healthcare system.
Where there is any gap in terms of knowledge, it is made at par by providing appropriate education and training so that these gaps do not affect the patients. The clinical strategies should be refined with the newest approaches so that the object of serving at large is achieved.
