The County of Santa Cruz Healthcare Coalition is a collaboration of private and public partners who work together to help Santa Cruz County prepare for, respond to and recover from medical and health emergencies. Through collaborative planning, training, exercises and the coordination of resources, the Healthcare Coalition leads a countywide effort to support and enable a disaster-resilient health care system.
Through the Medical Health Operational Area Coordinator, mutual aid may be requested during emergency and disaster response. Members are encouraged to attend Healthcare Coalition meetings, participate in training exercises and public information sharing for current situation status throughout all phases of emergency and disaster readiness.
The Four Healthcare Coalition Goals
Goal 1: Foundation for Health Care and Medical Readiness
Result: The community’s health care organizations and other stakeholders—coordinated through a sustainable HCC—have strong relationships, identify hazards and risks, and prioritize and address gaps through planning, training, exercising and managing resources.
Goal 2: Healthcare and Medical Response Coordination
Result: Health care organizations, the HCC, their jurisdiction(s) and the Emergency Support Function (ESF)-8 lead agency plan and collaborate to share and analyze information, manage and share resources, and coordinate strategies to deliver medical care to all populations during emergencies and planned events.
Goal 3: Continuity of Health Care Service Delivery
Result: Health care organizations, with support from the HCC and the ESF-8 lead agency, provide uninterrupted, optimal medical care to all populations in the face of damaged or disabled health care infrastructure. Health care workers are well-trained, well-educated and well-equipped to care for patients during emergencies. Simultaneous response and recovery operations result in a return to normal or, ideally, improved operations.
Goal 4: Medical Surge
Result: Health care organizations—including hospitals, EMS, and out-of-hospital providers—deliver timely and efficient care to their patients even when the demand for health care services exceeds available supply. The HCC, in collaboration with the ESF-8 lead agency, coordinates information and available resources for its members to maintain conventional surge response. When an emergency overwhelms the HCC’s collective resources, the HCC supports the health care delivery system’s transition to contingency and crisis surge response and promotes a timely return to conventional standards of care as soon as possible.
Grants/Funding
The Healthcare Coalition is funded by the Hospital Preparedness Plan grant. This grant also provides funding for medical system preparedness and local emergency medical services.
Healthcare Coalition Plans
The Santa Cruz County Healthcare Coalition Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA) is a Risk Assessment tool. Healthcare Coalition Members should fill out this tool annually to assess risks based on geographical vulnerabilities and real-world incidents from previous years. Based on the results of the HVA, HCC Members should identify areas that need improvement and exercise, share and plan with leaders and stakeholders, and identify resources needed for top hazards.