About the King County Healthcare Coalition

The purpose of the Coalition is to develop and maintain a comprehensive system that assures coordination, effective communications, and optimal use of available health resources in response to emergencies and disaster for all hazards.   Since November of 2005, the King County Healthcare Coalition has focused on three major initiatives:

1. Building the infrastructure to support a coordinated, regional emergency response across the health system. 

• Development of a Health and Medical Area Command Structure that provides policy level decision-making, information sharing, planning, resource, and logistics support for public health and healthcare providers.

2. Assisting healthcare organizations in strengthening continuity of operations and emergency preparedness

• Providing the technical assistance needed to ensure organizations have the plans, resources, and the training and exercising required to ensure continuity of operations and the surge capacity and capabilities needed to address all hazards.

3. Developing surge capacity and capability strategies that address public demand for health services during a response. 

• Identification and operational planning for Alternate Care Facilities that will augment the healthcare system
• Development and planning for a health and medical Regional Call Center that will link public and private call centers to manage demand for health and medical information
• Development of a Health and Medical Volunteer Management System that will manage the staffing required to support the demand. The system will address existing staff, medical reserve corps staff and spontaneous volunteers

	Strengthen the Healthcare Coalition Expand Coalition membership and participation Increase participation from mental health, ambulatory care, home health/home care and long-term care sectors Develop a sustainable model for the Coalition Explore different business models Identify sustainable funding strategies
	Develop Regional Resource and Information Management Capability Implement WATrac regionally Launch behavioral health sector home health/palliative care sector Configure ambulatory care and long term care sectors Further develop GIS mapping capability Collect and organize critical infrastructure and resource information from all sectors for response Develop tools to manage resource and information requests in the Area Command Center
	Develop a Training and Exercise Program for Healthcare Coalition Membership
	Develop Plans to Expand Regional Medical Surge Capacity and Capability Mutual Aid Agreements Develop a Regional Long Term Care Mutual Aid Evacuation Plan with EMS and other partners Develop a Regional Pediatric Mutual Aid Evacuation Plan with EMS and other partners Provide tools to support the development of Mutual Aid Agreements for ambulatory care, long term care, home health/home care, and behavioral health Alternate Care Facilities Develop plans for alternate care facility site in the south and eastside and exercise operational readiness Staffing Continue to develop a more robust volunteer staffing system Expand Public Health Reserve Corps membership Develop regional healthcare staffing policies to address findings from Healthcare Worker Survey Call Center Coordination Pursue statewide adoption of the call center coordination Support operational plan development Behavioral Health Initiate development of behavioral health response plan Family Assistance Develop systems and protocol for providing information and assistance to families of patients and victims during a disaster Fatality Management Develop surge capacity for managing fatalities for healthcare facilities
	Strengthen Continuity of Operations for Non-Hospital Providers Serving Higher Risk Populations Continue to provide technical assistance to ambulatory care, long term care , home health/home care, and behavioral health providers to ensure the development of continuity of operations plans and coordination within the region