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Disaster Health Care Response
Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed our disaster medical response systems, exposing numerous weaknesses and emphasizing the need to improve our country's ability to respond. It is well-documented that low-income people, the elderly, the disabled and other vulnerable populations suffered the brunt of the storm's impact and were least likely to evacuate prior to landfall. As a result, they were exposed to greater public health risks and an increased chance of health challenges that could have been avoided.
The federal government should incorporate the lessons from recent hurricanes to establish a better-equipped emergency medical response system, one that ensures equitable care for vulnerable populations, including the elderly, disabled, women, children and others with special needs.
The Equity and Inclusion Campaign calls on elected and appointed officials to:
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Establish the role of a Medical Coordinator to disseminate information about services and resources and to ensure proactive coordination of service providers that can deploy in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
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During emergencies of catastrophic scale, an additional healthcare emergency declaration should not be necessary, but rather physicians should be able to deploy to disaster impacted areas with full portability of state licensure requirements in place. Physicians should be able to register for "pre-approval" with emergency management officials, in order to address gaps in attending medical physicians between emergency response and long term recovery.
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Ensure access to mental and physical health services is readily available to those who are displaced and trained mental health care professionals are available to address both short-term and long-term needs.
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Mandate and support prioritizing getting medical facilities back online following the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
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An Office of Disability Coordination should be established within FEMA, to be headed by a Disability Coordinator; the Coordinator's position should be established as a Senior Executive Service position to be filled by a career appointee with significant emergency management experience and knowledge of issues relating to individuals with disabilities; Regional Disability Coordinators should be appointed and housed in each of the regional FEMA offices and in the Office of National Capital Region Coordination.
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Implement portability of electronic medical records as included in the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to facilitate access to medical treatment by persons displaced by disaster.
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