CMC2 - Leveraging After Action Reports to Realistically and Effectively Strengthen Emergency Management Plans - P2P NETWORK SESSION

Community Health Centers are facing increasing pressure with workforce challenges, prevalent public health crisis, and frequent natural disasters impacting their capacity to provide essential healthcare services to the most vulnerable populations. Preparing for these crises, responding with well-executed plans, and utilizing available resources to return to operational standards requires robust Emergency Management Plans (EMPs) and staff trained in implementing them. In this peer-to-peer session, speakers from International Medical Corps and the Florida Association of Community Health Centers will use real After-Action Reports (AAR) from recent disasters to highlight challenges and opportunities when activating existing EMPs. This engaging workshop will utilize a case study approach for participants to collaboratively develop feasible Improvement Plans (IPs) and execute multi-faceted strategies to strengthen EMPs across health center networks with diverse needs.

Following small group exercises, participants will learn from each other in a large group forum, during which strategies, opportunities, and resource identification that support improvement will be shared. Throughout the session, participants will be encouraged to identify learning and concrete examples of approaches to strengthen their own unique EMPs which can be practically incorporated with their teams and organization. A key emphasis of this session will be ensuring that the execution of IPs align with the reality that when a disaster strikes, health center staff and community members alike are equally impacted. Drawing upon real-world experiences, speakers will equip participants to continuously improve their EMPs with a mind towards workforce considerations, resource needs, and partnership opportunities that maintains operations and essential healthcare services.