Welcome to Modern Healthcare's online site for news and analysis when disaster strikes and public health and safety issues become a priority. Primary sources will be Modern Healthcare staff reporting as well as stories from other news organizations and reports from government sites and public health agencies.
The country's 40 largest metropolitan areas are not well prepared to handle a non-power-plant related radiological or nuclear incident, such as a terrorist attack, according to a report from HHS' inspector general's office. FULL STORY »
By Modern Healthcare | December 19, 2011
| Print Magazine
Experts say the country is still not as prepared for disaster as it should be 10 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. FULL STORY »
Telephones at 33-bed Seton Smithville (Texas) Regional Hospital are out of service because of a wildfire in nearby Bastrop, according to parent Seton Healthcare Family, Austin, Texas. FULL STORY »
The Trust for America's Health, Washington, released a report commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks of that time that includes more than 30 essays on public health's role during the attacks, as well as reports on how the country has responded. FULL STORY »
On Monday, many of the patients who had been evacuated from hospitals and nursing homes in advance of Hurricane Irene were transferred back—leaving financial chaos in the hurricane's wake. FULL STORY »
By Modern Healthcare staff | August 29, 2011
| Basic Web
Although Hurricane Irene didn't deliver the punch that was feared as it approached, hospitals across much of the Eastern Seaboard will spend the week assessing damage and restoring operations after preparing for the worst. FULL STORY »
By Vince Galloro, Melanie Evans and Jessica Zigmond | August 29, 2011
| Print Magazine
Healthcare providers along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England girded themselves for an expected beating from Hurricane Irene, which was on track to make landfall in North Carolina on Saturday and then move north along the coast.The precautions included a mandatory evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying areas of New York City. HHS activated the National Disaster Medical System and U.S. Public Health Service to provide medical teams, public health teams and hospital support. FULL STORY »
Share your experiences as healthcare leaders weathering the aftermath of Hurricane Irene with fellow Modern Healthcare readers on Facebook, Flickr and via Twitter to @modrnhealthcr.Post photos and describe how you and your organizations are coping with the storm's impact. Modern Healthcare will incorporate the dispatches in its continuing coverage of the storm. FULL STORY »
New York City hospitals that evacuated hundreds of patients ahead of Hurricane Irene began to assess the damage after the storm's winds and rains resulted in disrupted power and flooding across the city. FULL STORY »
By Paul Barr and the Associated Press | August 28, 2011
| Basic Web
Healthcare providers in North Carolina and Virginia began dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene as the storm, now downgraded to tropical-storm status, continued north toward New England. FULL STORY »
By Vince Galloro and Melanie Evans | August 26, 2011
| Basic Web
Healthcare providers along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England are preparing for the impact of Hurricane Irene, expected to make landfall in North Carolina Saturday and then move north along the coast. FULL STORY »
As Hurricane Irene approaches, so does the six-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, when healthcare executives learned best from the nation's worst natural disaster about how to keep their hospitals operating. FULL STORY »
A number of online resources are available to healthcare providers and their patients seeking information and guidance about how to prepare for and deal with the effects of Hurricane Irene. FULL STORY »
Share your experiences as healthcare leaders weathering Hurricane Irene with fellow Modern Healthcare readers on Facebook and via Twitter to @modrnhealthcr.Post photos and describe how you and your organizations are preparing for the storm and coping with its impact, assuming Hurricane Irene maintains its predicted path and strength and causes mayhem across wide swaths of the East Coast. FULL STORY »
By Modern Healthcare | July 04, 2011
| Print Magazine
Individual hospitals and healthcare systems in each of the 50 states were provided a portion of $352 million in HHS grants to improve their disaster planning and response capabilities. FULL STORY »
McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital, Carthage, Mo., signed an assistance agreement with St. John's Mercy Hospital, Joplin, Mo., in which McCune-Brooks will expand to 52 beds from 25. FULL STORY »
Individual hospitals and healthcare systems in each of the 50 states were provided a portion of $352 million in HHS grants awarded today to improve their disaster planning and response capabilities. FULL STORY »
The Institute of Medicine's newly released outline for how to improve the legal and regulatory framework to advance public health faces the usual obstacle of funding, but the public health community welcomed it as a valuable resource for the years to come. FULL STORY »
Freeman Health System, Joplin, Mo., has gotten federal waivers to add as many as 89 beds to accommodate the extra patients resulting from the tornado that struck the town May 22, destroying the other local hospital, 347-bed St. John's Regional Medical Center. FULL STORY »
Rebuilding a hospital decimated by natural disaster would be tough enough. St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo., faces particularly difficult obstacles that go beyond the physical destruction caused by the tornado. FULL STORY »
Executives overseeing 347-bed St. John's Regional Medical Center, the Joplin, Mo., hospital hit last Sunday by a tornado, pledged to the community that it will rebuild and unveiled plans for a 60-bed mobile hospital that it expects to be in place by Sunday. FULL STORY »
Sisters of Mercy Health System is mobilizing available resources and staff members to aid the disaster response effort at 347-bed St. John's Regional Medical Center, Joplin, Mo. The hospital is part of 22-hospital Mercy, based in Chesterfield, Mo. St. John's was severely damaged by a massive tornado that tore through the region Sunday. FULL STORY »
Hospitals across the South scrambled to maintain operations and treat patients after a series of powerful storms on Wednesday and early Thursday left hundreds dead and the region heavily damaged. FULL STORY »
Few will forget the imagery from Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, 19 hijackers took control of four jetliners. Two were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing more than 2,600; another plane struck the Pentagon, where 125 died. The fourth plane didn't reach the terrorists' target, thanks to the bravery of passengers and crew members who fought to regain control of the plane; but it crashed in rural Pennsylvania, killing all aboard. In New York, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, hospitals put their disaster plans into effect, preparing for mass... FULL STORY »
Japan's unfolding crisis raises the question of how well prepared the U.S. would be to withstand such a disaster, including radiation exposure. Healthcare industry experts are not eager to try to answer that question directly, but many will say the U.S. is in much better shape to handle a radiation disaster or one of any type as a result of preparations that came mainly in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. FULL STORY »
State health departments display substantial gaps in preparedness for a major radiation emergency, including acts of terrorism and unintentional releases of radiation, according to survey results published in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. FULL STORY »
The snowstorm that ripped through the Midwest last week created scheduling headaches for several hospitals in areas hit by the storm. But the implementation of disaster plans kept problems to a minimum, said hospital and health system officials. FULL STORY »
Hospitals in areas of the Midwest where snow and ice storms caused havoc launched emergency disaster plans and limited or canceled outpatient care. FULL STORY »
HHS has failed to produce and deliver to Congress a strategic plan for creating and evaluating an electronic information network to be used in the event of a catastrophic public health event, according to the Government Accountability Office. FULL STORY »
HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has published an emergency-preparedness pocket guide that provides resources to help hospitals design, conduct and evaluate their own emergency-preparedness exercises, with the aim of improving response capabilities. FULL STORY »
Budget cuts at federal, state and local levels are threatening the country's ability to respond to public health emergencies at basic levels, says a report from Trust for America's Health and funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. FULL STORY »
Thousands of Haitian earthquake victims have received medical care from more than 480 members of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons since January, with 500 other doctors on standby. FULL STORY »
By Gregg Blesch | October 04, 2010
| Print Magazine
Up next for some of the groups that wielded their expertise and influence in Washington to shape and push through a landmark healthcare overhaul: Save the planet? FULL STORY »
By Maureen McKinney | October 04, 2010
| Print Magazine
As a group of healthcare organizations work to fight the gradual effects of climate change, members of the Senate heard last week about the array of public health catastrophes that healthcare providers have to be ready to handle at a moment's notice. FULL STORY »
HHS in a new report outlines a more aggressive strategy for producing medications, vaccines, equipment and supplies needed for unforeseen health emergencies, tactics known as “medical countermeasures.” The nation is facing an increasingly dangerous landscape “where we don't know where the next public health crisis will come from,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a news conference. She and other federal health officials held the briefing to release The Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Review: Transforming the Enterprise to Meet... FULL STORY »
HHS has awarded $698 million through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this fiscal year for public health agencies to strengthen their responses to terrorism or natural disasters. FULL STORY »
HHS has awarded $698 million through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this fiscal year for public health agencies to strengthen their responses to terrorism or natural disasters. FULL STORY »
A severe influenza pandemic could cost the U.S. healthcare system $290 billion, according to a new report sponsored by the Society of Actuaries. The report stressed the need for disaster planning and pandemic preparedness, particularly on the part of health insurers. FULL STORY »
