Disaster Tips - Emergency Planning

OHCA strongly advises members to join with other facilities in their community or county and to contact local emergency planning agencies to develop plans that integrate long-term care providers into their community disaster planning. Such plans should address:

• Whether the immediate community has a published plan
• What the plan specifies by name, facility and population
• An incident command system
• Responses to multiple incidents at the same time
• Post-event clean up

A recently published GAO report shows that over the last several years the needs of the long-term care population had been overlooked in federal disaster and evacuation plans. Providers should begin to develop comprehensive emergency operations plans that defines the scope of preparedness under the guidelines of the Nursing Home Incident Command System (NHICS).