Community Preparedness

Community resiliency starts with effective preparedness. This means that everyone in the community is ready to respond and recover from any disaster that could affect them. FEMA and emergency managers across the country have embraced the Whole Community approach to disaster preparedness. This includes coordinating with public health and healthcare organizations to ensure that the response across disciplines is coordinated. By doing this, the health and medical community are increasingly planning in coordination with other agencies such as emergency management, first responders, etc. This method ensures that everyone in the community is ready to act in the event a disaster occurs and is able to recover quickly after the event.

Hospitals, healthcare, public health, public safety, homeland security, emergency management, community groups and local businesses have a responsibility to ensure that they can quickly recovery after a disaster. To do this efficiently, their employees must be prepared on a personal level as well. The Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response (YNHHS-CEPDR) can assist you and your workforce in becoming knowledgeable about personal and family preparedness. Taking preparedness actions will help you, your family and your workforce deal with disasters of all sorts much more effectively when they occur and allow you to focus on your business as needed, knowing your families are already protected. Some of our past experiences in this area include training all levels of emergency officials in how best to plan and respond to people with medical dependencies, ensuring both public and private sector institutions have comprehensive continuity of operations plans, as well as keeping local organizations informed on emerging threats and providing guidance on how best to mitigate potential effects.