News Releases

Bubonic Plague Exercise Tests Hospitals’ Mass Dispensing Plans

Operation Rat Pack, held in mid-September, was the latest emergency preparedness exercise for hospitals and others in the Northeast Ohio region. The scenario, an outbreak of bubonic plague affecting children and adults, was played out by 22 healthcare facilities and 11 health departments in Northeast Ohio region along with 11 health departments in the Northeast Central Ohio (NECO) region and six county emergency management agencies (EMA). In this exercise, The Center for Health Affairs served as a liaison between member hospitals and the EMA. 

The interregional effort met with success not only in communication but also identified gaps to address during the next exercise. Hospitals specifically tested their new Points of Dispensing (POD) Plans along with procedures for addressing an influx of patients and mass fatality.

According to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the federal office that oversees hospital preparedness work, all hospitals in the region are directed to complete their mass dispensing plans through a closed POD process, which enables dispensing of medications to hospital staff and their families. Locally, Paratus Solutions was hired with through the regional ASPR grant to assist the hospitals in this plan completion. Seven Northeast Ohio hospitals so far have completed their plans and tested their ability to dispense medications in a biological event to staff and their families in a short period of time. Five more hospitals will have completed their POD plans by June of next year.

It is necessary for hospitals to have a mass dispensing plan for quick distribution of medications to staff and their families prior to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) being requested and activated at the federal level. As an ASPR benchmark, since 2004 hospitals have had on hand a three-day cache of doxycycline and/or ciprofloxacin specifically for response to a biological event.

On a quarterly basis, The Center for Health Affairs tests hospitals’ ability to request the SNS through an email drill. Within three days of an event, it is expected that the Public Health Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) plan for order, receipt and distribution of the SNS will kick in, making the remainder of the medication available for distribution to hospitals at that time. The CRI initiative is specifically designed to set up community PODs for mass dispensing. Some of these PODs were set up and tested during the H1N1 outbreak where community vaccination was needed. 

For more information on this exercise or on regional emergency preparedness work, contact Beth Gatlin at 216.255.3665 or beth.gatlin@chanet.org or Andrea Bishop at 216.255.3662 or andrea.bishop@chanet.org.