• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Terrorism can put hospitals and law enforcement to the test

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 11, 2007

The day-to-day jobs of law enforcement personnel and healthcare workers naturally intersect with relative frequency, and this is never truer than when disaster strikes.

But some disasters, like a terrorist attack, can test the relationship of these two entities as both try to execute their response plans in a stressful, evolving, and sometimes dangerous environment. Not to mention, hospitals and law enforcement agencies may have competing interests or different priorities depending on the situation.

To that end, a new hand book developed by the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Army Soldier Biological Chemical Command, hopes to define the roles of healthcare and law enforcement more clearly and promote understanding between their varying interests in a time of crisis.

"The lack of mutual awareness and understanding, as well as the absence of established communication procedures, could hinder the effectiveness of law enforcement's and public health's separate, but often overlapping, investigations," says "The Criminal and Epidemiological Investigation Handbook," which you can find at www2a.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/CrimEpiHandbook2006.pdf.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive