A public health emergency can strain the capacity of hospitals and other traditional venues for medical services. In such emergencies, it may be necessary to select alternate facilities for providing medical care. The report beginning below, and the related interactive computer tools, will help institutions and communities select alternate care facilities and determine which patients to send to them. The two new interactive tools are Disaster Alternate Care Facility Selection Tool and an ancillary tool, Alternate Care Facility Patient Selection Tool.
The report and tools provide help for community planners in:
- Developing a "concept of operations" manual for a specific iteration of an ACF.
- Determining staffing for an ACF.
- Selecting hospital inpatients that might be eligible for transfer to an ACF.
- Determining equipment and supplies necessary for an ACF, based on expert advice and the experiences of those who have operated ACFs.
The Disaster Alternate Care Facility Selection Tool and Alternate Care Facility Patient Selection Tool are be available in Excel® versions. You may download the zipped Excel version of these tools from this page by using the links below. To save the files onto your computer, you may right click on the link and then select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer) or "Save Link As" (Firefox® or Netscape®).
- Disaster Alternate Care Facilities: Selection and Operation (PDF file, 1.96 MB)
- Disaster Alternate Care Facility Selection Tool (Zipped Excel File, 52.3 KB).
- Alternate Care Facility Patient Selection Tool (Zipped Excel File, 58.15 KB).
To unzip the two compressed files after downloading to your computer, use Windows® Explorer to locate and open the file. If your computer does not have file compression software installed, you may wish to download free WinZip file compression software.
Disaster Alternate Care Facilities: Selection and Operation
Prepared for:
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Contract No. 290-20-0600-020
Prepared by:
Denver Health, Denver, CO
Investigators:
Stephen V. Cantrill, M.D., Principal Investigator
Peter T. Pons, M.D., Co-Principal Investigator
Carl J. Bonnett, M.D., Co-Principal Investigator
Sheri Eisert, Ph.D., Investigator
Susan Moore, M.S.P.H., Project Manager
Contents
Executive Summary
Chapter 1. Objectives
Chapter 2. Background
Chapter 3. Methods
Chapter 4. Results
Appendixes
A. References and Available Abstracts
B. Advisory Panel Members
C. Alternate Care Facility Questionnaire
D. Alternate Care Facility Questionnaire Results
Disaster Alternate Care Facilities: Report and Interactive Tools was produced with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration and in collaboration with the Hospital Preparedness Program in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The report was developed under an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) contract to Denver Health (Contract No. 290-20-0600-020).
The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of AHRQ or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This document is in the public domain and may be used and reprinted without permission except those copyrighted materials noted for which further reproduction is prohibited without the specific permission of copyright holders.
