Partnerships and Linkages
Consistency with national priorities
Because a coordinated and consistent approach is an essential, national priority, all activities developed within this cooperative agreement will be designed to support the national directives guiding all preparedness activities. These include:
- National Domestic All Hazards Preparedness Goal (policies to strengthen the preparedness of the United States to prevent and respond to threatened or actual domestic terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies by requiring a national domestic all-hazards preparedness goal, establishing mechanisms for improved delivery of Federal preparedness assistance to State and local governments, and outlining actions to strengthen preparedness capabilities of Federal, State, and local entities);
- National Incident Management System (NIMS) (a system that provide a consistent nationwide approach to Federal, State, and local governments to work effectively together to prepare for, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity, including a core set of concepts, principles, terminology, and technologies covering the incident command system; multi-agency coordination systems; unified command; training; identification and management of core resources (including systems for classifying types of resources); qualifications and certification; and the collection, tracking, and reporting of incident information and incident resources);
- National Response Plan (the structure and mechanisms for national-level policy and operational direction for Federal support to State, local, and tribal incident managers and for exercising direct Federal authorities and responsibilities as appropriate under the law); and
- Framework for the Nation’s Biodefense (Threat Awareness, Prevention and Protection, Surveillance and Detection, and Response and Recovery).
Collaboration with the New York City and New York State offices of emergency preparedness will enhance the ability of this consortium to fully maintain the needed consistency.
All participants in this consortium are familiar with developing, managing and evaluating NIMS-consistent drills and exercises. Because this includes applications in both hospital and community settings, the issues related to coordination of expectations and performance across multiple components of the health response are familiar to the team. The continuing education developed under this project will be coordinated not only in content to be consistent with national expectations, but will also be available to support local schedules of drills and exercises in at least 4 ways: web-based basic material that can provide just-in-time refreshers for individuals responding; web-based or specifically-scheduled face-to-face training coordinated with a local institution or jurisdiction plan; interactive exercise CD-ROM that allows seldom-activated clinicians to develop performance competency in decision-making within ICS; or specially adapted versions of developed courses that are planned, designed, and delivered as part of the preparation for an exercise at the institutional or community-level. Scenarios for use in training will be consistent with the national set of standard scenarios to further enhance coordination.