Planning Resources by Setting: Communities

Related Pages

The following resource(s) are intended for use by a community to develop, modify, and assess its healthcare system preparedness plans.

Healthcare Preparedness and Response Team Tools

  • NEW: Space Staff Stuff; Identifying Your Community’s Resources Space, Staff, Stuff: Identifying Your Community’s Resources is a customizable tool to assist community planners identify their community organizations’ roles, responsibilities, and resources and determine potential gaps in their all-hazards planning efforts.
  • Community Planning Framework for Healthcare Preparedness The Framework is a tool that aids public health, healthcare, and emergency management planners with enhancing or developing community plans for medical surge. This guide addresses major topic areas such as planning teams, coalitions, alternate care systems, essential healthcare services, and crisis standards of care.
  • How to Develop Medical Surge Planning Workshops The workshop tool is an aid to community planners in developing workshops focused on medical surge planning. The tool supports the concepts for partner engagement outlined in the “Community Planning Framework for Healthcare Preparedness”.
  • The Ebola Concept of Operations (ConOps) Template The Template provides a standard format for creating an Ebola (ConOps) at the state, territorial, or major-metropolitan level. Though specifically written for the Ebola response, jurisdictions can modify the Template when planning for most novel infectious diseases.
    • The Discussion Guide for Ebola (ConOps) Planning The Discussion Guide is a tool to aid planners in developing an Ebola (ConOps) Plan using the Template. Included are recommendations on the partners to engage for each key system element and discussion questions to aid in developing response plans for the jurisdiction.
    • The Exercise Guide for Ebola (ConOps) Planning The Exercise Guide is a tool to aid planners in creating exercises to test the Ebola Concept of Operations (ConOps). Included are templates, scenarios, tools, and examples to facilitate the development of an Ebola (ConOps) plan exercise. The Exercise Guide will include individual elements of a plan and all-inclusive exercises.
  • Pandemic Influenza Triage Tools The Pandemic Influenza Triage Tools are a toolkit for healthcare professionals and community healthcare leaders and decision makers to manage influenza-like illness (ILI) and medical surge during a pandemic.
  • Community Assessment Tool (CAT) This planning tool developed by CDC is intended for use by a community to assess its readiness for a disaster from a total healthcare system perspective. The CAT helps reveal each core agency partners’ capabilities and resources, highlights cases of the same vendors being used for resource supplies by the partners, and address gaps in the community’s capabilities or potential shortages in resources.
  • Pan Flu Scramble The Scramble is a facilitated group activity that challenges communities to move a sudden increase of patients through their healthcare delivery system in an efficient and effective manner during a simulated pandemic influenza scenario.
  • Discussion Guides These Guides are for use during a facilitated small group (8 to 12 people) discussion of a community’s current pandemic influenza planning efforts. Discussion Guides have been developed for
  • Healthcare Organization and Hospital Cyber Discussion Guide The Discussion Guide is a tool to aid healthcare organizations and hospitals in the development of cybersecurity preparedness and response planning.
  • Delivery of Essential Healthcare Services Resources This page lists resources developed by state and local communities to determine how they would maintain delivery of essential healthcare services while providing care for large numbers of influenza patients during a pandemic. These resources include plans, guidelines, and tools to assist with these activities (e.g., staffing plans, triage and care plans, supply and resource lists).

Other Tools

  • Pandemic Influenza Electronic Exercise Tool
    This tool helps communities develop a virtual pandemic influenza exercise. The exercise uses electronic systems (e.g., email or a virtual tabletop exercise (VTTX) format) to facilitate participation from sectors by avoiding the need for an exercise venue or require participants to travel to an exercise location.
  • Interim Healthcare Coalition Checklist for Pandemic Planning
    • The Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (HHS/ASPR), National Healthcare Preparedness Programs (NHPP) developed the Healthcare Coalition Checklist for Pandemic Planning (HCCPP) with input from internal and external stakeholders.
    • The HCCPP recommends actions to develop and/or improve coalition-based emergency response plans for pandemic influenza and encompasses all stages of a potential H1N1 (“swine flu”) or other infectious disease outbreak. In conjunction with other tools, the HCCPP can help a HCC expand its pandemic influenza emergency response plan to include a diverse mix of partners including schools, businesses, community organizations, and government agencies. To make the best use of available information and resources, HCCs should integrate their efforts with pandemic preparedness plans. The HCCPP assists HCCs in assessing, developing, and improving their preparedness and response plans for a pandemic event.