Since the coalition launched in 2005, Program Manager Cynthia Dold’s role has involved strategic planning, relationship management and program development with hospitals and other health system partners in King County involved in all-hazards preparedness and response.
The King County Healthcare Coalition recently received the Outstanding Partnership Award at the 2012 National Homeland Security Conference in Columbus, Ohio.
Dold responded to a set of questions from Emergency Management magazine about the Healthcare Coalition.
Question: What was the impetus for the formation of the Healthcare Coalition?
What types of health organizations are part of the coalition? Did you exclude any categories, agencies or organizations?
The vision of our Healthcare Coalition has always been one that is open to all types of health-care providers, because in a disaster, everyone has a part to play and the community depends on having access to care. Participants in our coalition include hospitals, ambulatory care clinics, surgery centers, home health- and home-care providers, long-term care facilities, behavioral health providers, blood centers, dialysis providers, and just about any organization that delivers health care in King County.
In addition to our primary participants, we also partner with emergency management, EMS, critical infrastructure, public health, law enforcement and the private sector on developing plans and in our trainings and exercises. Their involvement in our work is essential for a successful health and medical response.
What role did federal funding play in starting the coalition, and how is the work being sustained now that federal funds are declining?
Federal grant funding has always been our largest funding source. When we officially launched the coalition in 2005, we were fortunate to receive seed money from the King County Council to help us formalize our efforts, but the Health Resources and Services Administration hospital bioterrorism funding — which is now the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Hospital Preparedness Program funding — has been our primary source of grant dollars. Over the years, small amounts of funding from various homeland security grants for planning projects in addition to leveraging some of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding from our local health department have helped supplement our programming.
However, we have always recognized that the federal funds were not going to be totally sustainable and that cuts to grant funding were inevitable. Over the last two years coalition staff has worked with our executive council leadership team to create a sponsorship program where health-care organizations and businesses could sponsor our coalition. The sponsorship program officially launched in June 2011, and in the next year or so we will begin making a more directed pitch to our local businesses. A prepared health-care system is something we all benefit from and all have a vested stake in.
Hospitals operate in a very competitive environment. What was the key to getting them to share information and coordinate with one another?
king-county-hc.jpgWe are fortunate that there has always been a collaborative and innovative attitude in the Seattle area, especially around emergency preparedness issues. Health-care organizations recognize that they do not want to be out on their own during a disaster so it creates a tremendous incentive to be at our table.
That said, over the years, I have also found that disasters can be a neutralizing topic — everyone is vulnerable, particularly in our earthquake-prone region. That recognition has helped remove some of the competitive energy. When the competitive issues do emerge we’ve been fortunate to be able to use it to our benefit to help push opportunities for innovative thinking and advance capabilities in the region. The coalition team sees it as its role to channel collaborative and competitive energy in a productive and valuable way, always with the aim of creating benefits for health care and the community.
What was your method in deciding the geographical footprint for the coalition? How are the coalition’s efforts coordinated with neighboring geographical regions?
Our geographical footprint was decided by our state’s regional construct for public health and homeland security regions, and we have worked within that over the years. As the largest county in the state, we have been a single-county planning and response region. However, we have always seen the value of multijurisdictional collaboration when possible, and we share our programming and tools with other communities in our state and nationally.
One of the challenges to the current geographical construct is that the medical market doesn’t honor these political boundaries. Many health-care systems serve multiple communities and cross county and state borders. This has become more apparent to us recently with expansion and mergers of various health systems, so in the next year or so we will be rethinking our footprint. The services that our coalition provides are scalable and there may be efficiencies gained in expanding where our services our offered.
How is the coalition staffed, and what governance measures are in place?
Our coalition has six to seven team members who do everything from program development, fundraising, communications, plan development, operational readiness and training and exercises. The staffing structure has shifted over time based on the scope and nature of our work. Having a team of people with the right skills and the right division of labor has helped us be successful and deliver good services to our health-care partners.
An executive council governs our coalition that’s made up of CEOs and COOs from health-care organizations throughout the Puget Sound. Their leadership and support has had a huge impact on our success. At an operational level, we also have a countless number of health-care providers who participate in our committees, meetings and projects.
What do you expect next in the evolution of the coalition?
I have touched on this above in a couple of different ways, but I am excited about the future of our coalition. I think it involves broader geographic reach, a more operationally and financially sustainable model, strong public-private partnerships and pushing the envelope in terms of innovation in our field. As the coalition grows, we need to treat it more like a business and with that we need to stay competitive and relevant. Yet we also need to focus on the importance of the relationships that have been built to ensure those are not lost.
What recommendations do you have for anyone interested in trying to replicate your efforts at forming a health-care coalition?
First and foremost, talk with your health-care organizations, community partners and other stakeholders and figure out what your gaps are and what is the vision for what you want to create together. What do you want your coalition to be able to do during planning and/or response? Then talk to as many coalitions as you can, borrow as much as you can, and be realistic about the infrastructure you are trying to create. Be innovative, and think about creative partnerships that you can make to create a coalition as efficiently as you can. There is a lot of really good work already happening out there. We don’t need 900 coalitions in the U.S.
Get more information about health-care coalitions: The 2012 National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness Conference, Building Capabilities Through Partnerships, will be held Nov. 27-28 in Alexandria, Va. The event brings together public health, health care, EMS and emergency management around ensuring that communities have the structures and programming in place necessary to build effective health-care coalitions.
