Committee
The Emergency Preparedness Committee
(EPC) (see Appendix) of the Healthcare
Table I Disaster categories and types
Weather Man-made
Transport and
communication Medical
Major
disturbance Energy
Floods Structure fire Telephone
system
Epidemic Civil disturbance Fuel shortage
Hurricanes Hazardous
materials
Major road
accidents
Mass poisoning Subversion/
sabotage
Major power
failure
Earthquakes Building collapse Aircraft crash Water supply
contaminate
Labor unrest
Brush/forest fire Power failure Major accidents Bomb threats
Volcano Explosions
Tidal wave Terrorism
Source: Adapted from Carroll (1999, p. 27)
175
Emergency preparedness and disaster management in Hawaii
Ross Prizzia and Gary Helfand
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 10 . Number 3 . 2001 . 173±182
Downloaded by University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce At 06:47 08 June 2016 (PT)
Association of Hawaii is responsible for
providing hospital services in support of the
state civil defense system as cited in Hawaii's
Disaster Relief Act (Hawaii Revised Statutes,
Chapter 127) and various federal, state, and
county emergency response plans. The Chair
of the EPC is appointed by the Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) of HAH (see Appendix).
Members are appointed by their respective
health care organization CEOs. Membership
includes representatives of all hospitals in the
state of Hawaii including Tripler Army
Medical Center, the Blood Bank of Hawaii,
State and County Civil Defenses, State and
County Departments of Health, US
Department of Defense, and various nongovernmental
organizations, such as the
AmericanRedCross andothers.TheHAHand
the EPC coordinates information with the
various federal, state, and county departments
through the EPC which has most key state and
county agencies in its membership.
Representatives of the EPC also sit on various
state and county working groups, task forces,
and exercise development teams. The
interaction is both formal and informal. The
annual goals and objectives of the EPC are
determined by requests of the HAH Board of
Directors; requests of various county and state
agencies; outcomes of previous year exercises
(sub-optimal performance); and development
needs of EPC membership.
The procedures for responding to an
emergency that will affect large numbers of
the population (e.g. hurricanes, weapons of
mass destruction, etc.) are outlined in the
Hospital Services Coordinating Plan (HSCP)
(see Appendix) which describes how hospital
services are to be provided during an
emergency or disaster. This plan includes a
number of emergency operating procedures.
The HSCP also outlines procedures for
responding to an emergency on a smaller
scale; and defines operational response into
three levels beginning with routine daily
operations (level 0). The HSCP also details
which hospital people are taken to in the
course of an emergency.
The EPC also coordinates at least one largescale
statewide exercise each year. These
exercises are carefully planned, executed in
close coordination with federal, state, county,
and private agencies, and evaluated. Although
the annual statewide EPC exercise is the major
training activity of each year's schedule, the
EPC also participates in a number (average of
two to three) of smaller interorganizational
coordinated exercises hosted by other agencies.
The Honolulu based EPC is unique in the
nation. Its strength is the ability to bring all
key stakeholders involved in health care
emergency response into one, well-aligned,
and well-coordinated system. Improvement
opportunities include the need to further
incorporate non-hospital organizations into
the network more effectively, and improve the
professional development of hospital
emergency coordinators. For example, a key
player with EPC is Toby Clairmont, vicepresident
of Kaiser Permanente Medical
Center in the state of Hawaii. During
``peacetime'' he chairs the EPC, and during
``wartime'' when an emergency threatens or
has occurred, he serves as the special staff
officer for the Honolulu EOC coordinating all
hospitals in the state of Hawaii. According to
Vice-President Clairmont, who has worked
over 250 emergencies in the last 25 years,
ranging from multi-family structural fires to
hurricanes, three critical factors in
successfully responding emergencies are:
(1) family emergency preparedness;
(2) local community emergency response
teams; and
(3) well-trained organizational coordinators
(T. Clairmont, personal communication,
September 26, 1999).
The Emergency Medical Services
Division
In Hawaii, the statewide responsibility for
emergency medical services rests with the
State Department of Emergency Services
(SDES). Annually, the State Department of
Health (SDOH) (see Appendix) contracts
with the City and County of Honolulu to
provide pre-hospital emergency medical care
and emergency ambulance services on the
island of