The procedures for responding to an

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).