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Defining “Community” in Emergency Preparedness
- Barbara I. Braun, PhD;
- Nicole V. Wineman, MA, MPH, MBA;
- Jerod M. Loeb, PhD; and
- Joseph A. Barbera, MD
- From the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, and George Washington University, Washington, DC.
IN RESPONSE:
Dr. Jarrett makes the point that integration among all medical assets in the community is a necessary step toward increasing response capacity and capability. We fully support this concept. Too often, disparate local health care organizations are not planning collaboratively for a coordinated, community-wide emergency response. Health care and response organizations expect to work together during an emergency but do not necessarily share plans or have a commonly understood framework for coordination under the urgency and uncertainty of a rapidly evolving incident, and major problems result. For example, during Hurricane Wilma, several hospitals had transportation agreements with the same …
