WA a Top State in 8th “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” Report

Arkansas, North Dakota & Washington all received perfect 10 out of 10 scores in the most recent “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” study, conducted by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Key findings:

• Seven states cannot currently share data electronically with health care providers;
• 10 states do not have an electronic syndromic surveillance system that can report and exchange information to rapidly detect disease outbreaks;
• Half of states do not mandate all licensed child care facilities have a multi-hazard written evacuation and relocation plan;
• Only four states report not having enough staffing capacity to work five, 12-hour days for six to eight weeks in response to an infectious disease outbreak, such as novel influenza A H1N1; and
• Only one state decreased their Laboratory Response Network for Chemical Threats (LRN-C) chemical capability from August 10, 2009 to August 9, 2010.

Despite progress, a series of major ongoing gaps in preparedness remain: basic infrastructure and funding, biosurveillance, maintaining an adequate and expertly trained workforce, developing and manufacturing vaccines and medicines, surge capacity for providing care in major emergencies and helping communities cope with and recover from emergencies.

The report also looked at findings from a recently released report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based on activities in 2007-08 that focus on emergency operations and food outbreak identification.

• Only two states reported that pre-identified staff were not able to acknowledge notification of emergency exercises or incidents within 60 minutes a minimum of two times, the target established by the CDC;
• Six states did not activate their emergency operations center (EOC) a minimum of two times, the target established by the CDC;
• Only two states did not develop at least two After Action Report/Improvement Plans (AAR/IPs) after exercises or real incidents in 2007-08; and
• 21 states were not able to rapidly identify disease-causing E.coli O157:H7 and submit the lab results in 90 percent of cases within four days.

Article: www.healthcareitnews.com/news/it-used-score-top-states-emergency-preparedness
Report: www.healthyamericans.org/reports/bioterror10/