King County Healthcare Coalition

Purpose & Objectives

"A Healthcare Coalition is a network of healthcare organizations and providers that are committed to coordinating their emergency preparedness and response activities."

This basic description helped our team stay focused on our desired outcome. Next steps included clearly defining the Coalition's purpose and objectives and identifying the necessary Healthcare Sectors to be included in the Coalition before moving into assessment & engagement of partners. The Coalition's Preparedness Role and Response Role were also defined and are highlighted in the Organization and Structure section of this Toolkit.

Purpose

The purpose is to develop and maintain a comprehensive system that assures effective communication, strategic acquisition and management of resources and collaborative planning in response to emergencies and disasters.

Goals for 2008 and 2009

1. Build the Healthcare Coalition
   1. Expand membership and partnership
   2. Establish the Executive Council
2. Create Information and Resource Management capability
   1. Develop operational plan
   2. Implement incident management and resource management software
3. Expand regional medical surge capacity and capability to handle increased demand for services
   1. Develop regional surge plans for alternate care facilities, call center coordination and mass critical care
4. Educate and prepare healthcare providers to respond to emergencies
   1. Strengthen regional hospital and ambulatory care sector plans
   2. Initiate sector planning with the palliative care, long term care, home health, behavioral health and pediatric communities
2008 Goals & Objectives2009 Goals & Objectives

Healthcare Sectors

• Home Health and Palliative Care Providers
• Hospitals
• Long Term Care Providers
• Medical Groups
• Behavioral Health Providers
• Pediatric (Inpatient and Outpatient)
• Safety Net Clinics
• Specialty Providers
• Tribal Clinics