Attendees at the 2017 Preparedness Summit will explore factors driving change in our world; analyze how they will impact the future of public health preparedness; and identify opportunities today to drive action toward meeting future needs. Continuous quality improvement of emergency planning and response efforts is a critical aspect for the future of public health preparedness, making Project Public Health Ready (PPHR) a fitting topic at this year’s Summit. To date, PPHR is the only program available to comprehensively assess public health preparedness and response at local and regional levels. Created and led by NACCHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PPHR is a criteria-based training and recognition program that assesses local health department (LHD) capacity and capability to plan for, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies. PPHR aims to protect the public’s health and strengthen the public health infrastructure by equipping local health departments with sustainable tools to plan, train, and exercise using a continuous quality improvement model. Since 2004, more than 450 local health departments have been covered by an agency recognized as meeting all PPHR requirements individually or working collaboratively as a region.
At this year’s Preparedness Summit, NACCHO’s Preparedness, Planning, Outcomes and Measurement (PPOM) Workgroup, which oversees PPHR, will host a learning session to share a draft Framework created to broaden the program’s impact. Historically, NACCHO had separate applications for LHDs and for regions. Over time, however, the regional applications were phased out and all applicants were required to use a single application. Globally assessing LHDs and Regions on the same criteria is inherently difficult, because regions operate differently across the nation. Some have operational authority to lead response and recovery efforts, whereas others take on a supporting role, assisting their LHDs as the leading entities in local response efforts. Last year, in an effort to continually move the PPHR program forward, the PPOM Workgroup began examining the feasibility and utility of creating PPHR applications geared specifically toward support response agencies—those agencies whose response role is support of local ‘boots on the ground’ agencies.
Throughout 2016 and 2017, several ad hoc workgroups convened to examine the feasibility of developing a new Framework for support response agency PPHR applicants. Additional insight was gathered from several focus groups and subject matter experts to determine the most appropriate framework and application process.
During this learning session, PPOM Chair and Framework Co-Chairs, Melissa Marquis and Robert Goff, and NACCHO Senior Program Analyst, Sarah Summers, will present the draft PPHR Framework, including the background and the overall process thus far. This session will be interactive, encouraging feedback from audience members on the Framework. Presenters will use electronic polling methods to obtain information throughout the session, and ask that attendees come with eager minds and creative ideas.
Titled, “A New Project Public Health Ready Framework: Assessing Support Response Agency Planning and Response Capability,” this session will take place on April 25 from 1:30-3:00 PM. Questions or comments on the new PPHR Framework can be directed to Sarah Summers at NACCHO.
Visit the 2017 Preparedness Summit website to view the full conference schedule, registration information and more. As a reminder, online registration ends April 14, 2017.
