Health System Expansion

Health System Expansion is one of the themes in the themes & enablers framework. The themes represent goals that, when realized, create a robust regional system capable of managing large-scale and dynamic disasters and public health emergencies. Enablers are functional areas in which meaningful progress will increase the ability of communities and regions to actualize the identified themes. The Health System Expansion is a community focused-response that expands boundaries of traditional first responder cate to include laypersons with first-aid training.

TEAM LEAD

Thomas Barnett, MPH

thbarnett@unmc.edu

  • The overarching goal of health system expansion is to blend community members into existing disaster planning and response.

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    Train non-medical community members to prepare them to respond and help the injured prior to EMS arriving at the scene of an incident.

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    Focus on the community approach to provide infrastructure, logistics/supply chain capacity, volunteers, and other private sector and community resources to increase surge support disaster response.

  • Provide training and resources to non-medical or the lay person within the community.  The lay person will be weaved in disaster preparedness by providing trainings such as: FEMA until help arrives, FAST course, basic first aid, STOP THE BLEED, CPR (cardiac pulmonary resuscitation) or supply chain management.

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    Fully integrating communities in disaster preparedness and the "whole of community" approach, will take time, patience and a willingness to embrace a new way of responding to disasters.

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    Explore collaborative opportunities with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nebraska Medicine trauma team, Heartland Workforce Solutions, and the American Red Cross.