215838 Developing a Regional Solution to Limited Pediatric Medical Surge Capacity for Disaster Response

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Andrew C. Rucks, PhD , Health Care Organization and Policy, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL
Peter M. Ginter, PhD , Health Care Organization and Policy, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL
W. Jack Duncan, PhD , Health Care Organization and Policy, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL
Martha S. Wingate, DrPH , Health Care Organization and Policy, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL
S. Kenn Beeman, MD, FACS , Northeast Public Health District II, Mississippi State Department of Health, Tupelo, MS
Jane Reeves, RN , Center for Emergency Preparedness, Alabama Department of Public Health, Montgomery, AL
Maury West, LGSW , ADPH Social Work Director, Alabama Department of Public Health, Montgomery, AL
The lack of pediatric surge capacity is particularly acute in the Southeastern United States. Over the past several years pediatric providers as well as emergency managers have come to realize that the continuing challenges of limited pediatric resources in the Southeast would require focus on leading, organizing, and managing numerous organizations in order to meet the demand of emergency pediatric medical surge. Effective emergency response would require a new type of organization – a highly collaborative network of agencies and organizations that functioned as a single high-reliability organization – a high-reliability/high collaboration network (HRHCN). Drawing upon the High Reliability Organization and Interagency Collaboration literatures and theoretical frameworks, this paper reports the efforts of more than forty organizations to transfer theory to practice by organizing and maintaining a high-reliability/high collaboration network – the Southeastern Pediatric Disaster Surge Network, a voluntary network of health care providers, public health departments, volunteers, and emergency responders to provide mutual aid for pediatric care during and after an emergency or disaster.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Administration, management, leadership
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
1. To define the effects of the acute shortage of pediatric surge capacity for disaster response in the Southeastern United States. 2. To define the characteristics and structure of a new type of organization, the high reliability/high collaboration network (HRHCN), a highly collaborative network of agencies and organizations functioning as a single high reliability organization. 3. To describe the process used to create the Southeastern Pediatric Disaster Surge Network.

Keywords: Access to Health Care, Disasters

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the Principal Investigator of the project that is planning for the development of a network of organizations to provide disaster response surge capacity for pediatric patients in the Southeastern United States.
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.

Back to: 4235.0: Infant and Child Health Poster Session