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CDC's EMS All-Stars

Emergency Management Alert, July 25, 2006

CDC's EMS All-Stars

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), and the Division of Injury Response (DIR) has selected seven communities as best practice models of how EMS can work with other safety and public health agencies in times of disaster. As part of CDC'c TIDE Project (Terrorism Injuries: Information, Dissemination and Exchange), Model Communities identifies where relationships between the emergency care community and public health are established and how they can operate at levels that effectively respond to events that may cause large numbers of injuries.

According to the CDC, "Each of the selected communities has been successful in strengthening the relationship and collaboration between public health and the emergency care community to improve daily operations and disaster preparedness for their communities." The CDC identified features common to the communities. They include:

• Strong medical oversight on both public and emergency care;
• A desire and an effort to educate both emergency care and public health providers about each others' role;
• Recognition of the role of and a commitment to developing and maintaining relationships between leadership through regular meetings, teambuilding exercises, and planning;
• Bringing community stakeholders (businesses, clinics, universities, etc.) into planning process;
• Creation of disaster plans developed locally, involve public health and emergency care, and that are repeatedly drilled; and
• Aggressive pursuit and securement of funding.

Check out the report here.

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