175564 Louisiana's Care of Chronically Ill clients During Emergencies Summits

Monday, October 27, 2008: 11:35 AM

Doris G. Brown, MS, MEd, RN, CNS , Center for Community Preparedness, Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Public Health, Baton Rouge, LA
Purpose: The Summits (July, 2006 and April, 2007) brought together entities involved with clients with chronic health care needs. The purpose was to elicit strategies for effectively managing clients during emergencies and mitigating exacerbations.

Invited participants were those involved directly and indirectly with sheltering during emergencies, subject matter experts, and lead agencies for the commonly encountered disease processes in shelters. (21) entities were represented.

Summit I

Participants discussed recommendations for information to be emphasized for targeted disease processes before and during emergencies.

Recommendations for implementing this information were developed, one of which included providing refresher trainings to nurses assigned to Medical Special Needs Shelters.

Summit II

Accomplishments from Summit I were reviewed and a framework for Future Plans was developed. The major future project is development of a strategy for promoting a single database for tracking medical special needs clients with critical transportation needs.

Learning Objectives:
Discuss three ways to provide guidance to clients with chronic health care needs in managing their illnesses during emergencies. Discuss how to provide guidance to shelters (Medical Special Needs Shelters, faith-based, private entities) for care of chronic health care needs clients.

Keywords: Disasters, Public Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: No financial Interest.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.