HHS report underscores need for National Disaster Response Plans to include long term care facilities

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The release of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report, "Nursing Home Emergency Preparedness and Response During Recent Hurricanes," illustrates the need for both the government and the health care provider community to do a better job of coordinating emergency preparedness and carrying- out the emergency evacuation of frail, elderly and disabled seniors, the American Heath Care Association (AHCA) commented.

"The timely HHS study is clear in pinpointing the fact that all of us -- government as well as the provider community -- can improve disaster preparedness in order to protect our most vulnerable frail, elderly and disabled," said Bruce Yarwood, president and CEO of AHCA.

"We can better protect our patients and residents during future emergencies by ensuring that the federal government more effectively involves itself in providing the resources and increased logistical support necessary to achieve the greater resident safety levels it correctly insists upon."

"The OIG report underscores the fact that nursing homes provide critical health care services to a vulnerable population and they must be included in any national disaster response plan," continued Yarwood.

"AHCA has been working with HHS and other agencies to ensure that this sector of health care is appropriately included in national plans as they are further developed."

In testimony on Aug. 9, before the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) regarding optimizing seniors' safety and care quality during disasters and evacuations, Lu Marie Polivka-West, senior director for the Quality Credentialing Foundation at the Florida Health Care Association (FHCA), offered the following recommendations on behalf of AHCA to help improve disaster response and preparedness:

-- The National Disaster Medical System should support the evacuation and care of nursing home patients/residents, assisted living residents and people residing in residential care facilities for the elderly and developmentally disabled. A recently released GAO study, "Disaster Preparedness: Limitations in Federal Evacuation Assistance Should Be Addressed," found this to be a serious limitation.

-- The development of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs) must be expedited. Our nation's lack of an interoperable electronic health information infrastructure that houses and allows access to personal health and medical information left victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without sufficient records to allow caregivers to make appropriate and safe decisions about immediate care.

-- Emergency communications must be addressed. The fatal weakness of every failed emergency plan is the assumption that communications and public service infrastructures would still be in place in the aftermath of a disaster. As we witnessed last year, this was simply not the case. Any new plan cannot be reconstructed on this flawed assumption.

-- New protocols are necessary to improve communications and coordination between all providers and the local, state, and federal governments.