News Releases

Northeast Ohio Awarded Fiscal Year 2021 Hospital Preparedness Program Funding

Northeast Ohio will receive $796,993 in Hospital Preparedness Program funding in state fiscal year 2021, according to the notice of award recently issued by the Ohio Department of Health. The funding is the result of the successful application made earlier this year by The Center for Health Affairs, the federally designated regional emergency preparedness coordinator for Northeast Ohio.

Originating under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness Response (ASPR), an office within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the funds will support a range of activities during the year ahead, including completion of the Burn Surge Annex of the Healthcare Coalition Response Plan and a Regional Burn Surge Tabletop Exercise to be held by March 2021 to test the plan.

Additional activities will include:

• Updating and completing the Infectious Disease surge annex to the Ebola and other special pathogens plan in coordination with public health. This year’s COVID-19 response serves as the exercise for that plan.
• Completing the Coalition Surge Test, which is an annual requirement to test evacuation of a hospital and the ability to place patients in beds. This exercise will test the fire response plan, including its transportation section. 
• Continuing to hold healthcare coalition meetings and trainings virtually every month as well as communications drills. The healthcare coalition includes not only the region’s 27 acute care hospitals but also more than 70 other agencies required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to participate in emergency response planning.
• Conducting a survey of hospital infectious disease prevention specialists regarding lessons learned from COVID-19 response.

The ability of hospitals in Northeast Ohio to quickly mobilize this spring and put forth a coordinated response to COVID-19 was a real-time demonstration of the value and importance of these ongoing emergency preparedness activities and the continuation of the federal Hospital Preparedness Program funding that makes them possible.

As The Center heads into the fiscal year 2021 grant activities, it is concurrently working to close out FY 2020, completing final reports and reimbursing remaining hospital expenses eligible under the COVID-19 supplemental funding.

For more on The Center’s emergency preparedness program, contact us.

TWEETABLE: Northeast Ohio will receive $796,993 in Hospital Preparedness Program funding in 2021 to support emergency preparedness planning and testing.