ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• SMORT Advisory Committee
• Cathy Molchan
• Director, Quality Assurance and Registration
• Alabama Center for Health Statistics
• Southern Regional NAPHSIS Meeting
• Charleston, SC March 2007

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• What is ESF8?
• Emergency Support Functions
• 1 - Transportation
• 2 - Communications
• 3 - Public Works
• 4 - Firefighting
• 5 - Information and Planning
• 6 - Mass Care
• 7 Resource Support
• 8 Health and Medical

• 9 Search and Rescue
• 10 Hazmat
• 11 Food and Water
• 12 Energy
• 13 Military Support
• 14 Public Information
• 15 Volunteer and Donations
• 16 Law Enforcement
• 17 Animal Protection

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• What is the purpose of the Region IV Unified
  Planning Coalition?
• Made up of the HHS Region IV States
• Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi,
  North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee
• Federal Partners
• HHS, CDC, FEMA, HRSA, NDMS, ASTHO
• Assist impacted states in planning for,
  responding to and recovering from catastrophic
  events

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• Services Offered
• Identify an inventory of all health and medical
  assets in Region IV States
• Provide regional communications on the status of
  events in the impacted areas, assist in
  forecasting resource needs and develop
  consequence timeline
• In a potential or actual event of public health
  significance assemble all Region IV state and
  federal partners to develop an incident action
  plan (IAP)

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• Services Offered, cont
• Gather and communicate medical intelligence
  regarding medical facilities, medical beds, and
  patient movements
• Assist in the identification and facilitation of
  effective ground communication systems
• Provide a channel for non-impacted states to
  offer assistance to impacted states to reduce
  redundancy in the deployment of resources
• Provide ongoing analysis of deployed assets by
  states to reduce demands being placed on one
  states resources

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• SMORT (State Mortuary Operations Response Team)
  Committee
• One of Several Committees
• Responsible for Mass Fatality Management

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• Mass Fatality Management
• Operations are conducted through a unified
  command structure
• Allows agencies with different legal, geographic,
  and functional authorities and responsibilities
  to work together effectively without affecting
  individual agency authority, responsibility, or
  accountability
• Capability to effectively perform scene
  documentation
• The complete collection and recovery of the dead,
  victims personal effects, and items of evidence
• Decontamination of remains and personal effects
  if required
• Transportation, storage, documentation, and
  recovery of forensic and physical evidence

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• Mass Fatality Management,cont
• Determination of the nature and extent of injury
• Identification of the fatalities using scientific
  means
• Certification of the cause and manner of death
• Processing and returning of human remains and
  person effects of the victims to the legally
  authorized person(s)
• Interaction with and provision of legal,
  customary, compassionate, and culturally
  competent required services to the families of
  deceased within the context of the family
  assistance center
• All activities should be sufficiently documented
  for admissibility in criminal and/or civil courts

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• 10 Components of an Ideal SMORT
• Assessment Team
• Search and Recovery
• Missing Persons and Investigations
• Storage
• Logistics
• Victim Family Services post and ante mortem
  data collection

• Responder and Victim Mental Health
• Command and Control
• Security
• Identification
• Morgue operations forensics
• Analysis of data from morgue for identification
• States without one or more of these components
  can request assistance from the Regional Team

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• SMORT Advisory Committee
• Committee Members
• DHHS Region IV ESF 8 Command
• DHS NDMS Region IV ESF 8 Command
• DMORT Subject Matter Experts
• Search and Recovery Subject Matter Experts
• State ESF 8 Command
• State Medical Examiner
• November 2006
• Established Education Subcommittee
• Established component State leads
• Began implementation plan

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• SMORT Advisory Committee
• Next Steps
• Buy In from all agencies
• Multi State commitment
• contract for recruitment and education
• Support for State Medical Examiners and Taskforce
  Appointments
• Implementation Plan

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• SMORT Advisory Committee
• Vital Record Issues as Identified by Group
• Need current contact information for each state
  in the event of mass fatality event
• Mechanism to reduce the possibility of searching
  for persons who are previously deceased
• Mechanism to eliminate the filing of duplicate
  death certificates for victims

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ESF8 Region IV Unified Planning Coalition

• What are we doing regarding Mass Fatalities in
  our States?
• What should we be doing?