Regional Coordinating Center for Hurricane Response – linking lessons learned to policy and practice options

This presentation will describe the response of Morehouse School of Medicine to the health disparities in the Gulf Region as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Through its Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities at the National Center for Primary Care, Morehouse School of Medicine was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, with support from the National Institutes of Health, National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, to coordinate the work of all of the Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities in the southeast region in rebuilding and enhancing the health infrastructure in the hurricane impacted areas. The project, titled the Regional Coordinating Center for Hurricane Response (RCC), has also facilitated collaboration with local health departments and community health centers, private clinics and clinicians, and academic health centers. The RCC has also begun providing personal health records to individuals and electronic medical record software to clinics. The center's emphasis on community surveillance and screening is evident in its support of New Orleans Health Recovery Week, which addressed the health care needs of the people who remained in the Greater New Orleans area after the storms. Additionally, the project has a telepsychiatry focus to address disparities in mental health. In this session, the lessons learned from the RCC's experience will be linked to policy and practice options aimed at improving access to an equitable, responsive, and sustainable health system for underserved populations and reducing health disparities across socioeconomic and racial groups.