Read PCDC’s NATIONAL SUMMIT ON PRIMARY CARE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS SUMMIT highlights and presentations.

PCDC Primary Care Emergency Preparedness Program ™

Can You Care For Your Community During A Disaster?

Primary care centers are vital frontline sources of services in their communities. In emergencies, primary care centers must be ready to:

• Preserve continuity of care, especially for vulnerable populations
• Identify potential disease outbreaks
• Provide mental health services
• Provide critical information in a culturally and linguistically accessible manner
• Coordinate efforts with local organizations and emergency responders
• Provide surge capacity to offload non-emergent care from overwhelmed hospitals
• Access the essential resources necessary to meet community needs

PCDC Can Help You To Prepare

The Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC) has worked with over 40 community-based primary care centers in New York City to develop customized emergency preparedness plans. These plans improved the capacity of primary care centers to respond effectively to any type of emergency.

PCDC Primary Care Emergency Preparedness Core (PCEP Core)™ is a comprehensive, coordinated approach to emergency preparedness for primary care providers. With PCDC’s support, primary care centers will:

• Establish a core level of emergency preparedness competency
• Identify the roles and responsibilities of their organization and staff in responding to disasters
• Standardize emergency response procedures and coordinate with local organizations to support their community during a disaster
• Establish plans for protecting patients, staff, community, and property during emergencies and disasters
• Identify essential resources available for use during response and recovery operations
• Develop a response and recovery plan to ensure business continuity

PCEP Core™ is National Incident Management System compliant and exceeds the current guidance from the Bureau of Primary Health Care emergency management expectations for primary care centers.

Results

PCDC continually measures site progress through a customized primary care emergency preparedness assessment and tracks sites against our development stages of a comprehensive emergency preparedness program for primary care centers.

PCDC PCEP Core™ delivers results. Over 40 New York City primary care centers have increased their emergency preparedness capacity from an average of 48% to 89%.

Instead of closing their doors during an emergency, organizations now see themselves as a true resource for their communities—regardless of what kind of emergency—and are ready to respond.

Our Approach

Using the Collaborative Learning Model, PCDC works closely with a multidisciplinary team from each participating center over nine months to develop a customized comprehensive emergency plan. Using this model, PCDC brings various primary care centers together to share their challenges, learn and test new strategies, and share progress with colleagues from other institutions.

Since every center is unique, PCDC assigns a coach to each team to help them adapt the program to fit their needs. PCDC partners with the Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response (YNH-CEPDR) so that centers can learn from experts through group education and individualized site visits.

We Can Help You Take The Next Step

Investing in a comprehensive primary care approach to emergency preparedness may be one of the most important investments you can make. PCDC will work with you to bring this program to community health centers and primary care providers in your region.

Government Agencies

This program can help centers achieve the goals of standardizing primary care emergency response plans; unifying the efforts of city, state, and federal agencies; reinforcing support systems at the community level; and providing resources and culturally-relevant information during an emergency.

Primary Care Associations

We can help build your members’ capacity in primary care emergency preparedness by offering training and implementation support to centers as they develop their emergency preparedness programs. If you already have emergency preparedness resources and want to grow internal capacity in this area, PCDC can provide you with the tools, materials, and coaching support necessary to run PCEP Core™ on your own.

Hospital Systems with an Ambulatory Care Network

Increasingly, hospitals are incorporating affiliated and non-affiliated primary care providers into their response plans. These providers can create additional surge capacity for the hospital, tend to the concerns of family, and serve as an important mechanism for communication with the community. However, hospital ambulatory care centers need their own specific plans that will comply with the master hospital plan.

PCDC customizes PCEP Core™ to help build your hospital’s overall capacity in emergency preparedness by working closely with you and your ambulatory care centers.

Why Partner With PCDC and YNH-CEPDR?

• PCDC knows primary care. No other consulting organization has our breadth and depth of experience in the diverse primary care market. We have worked with all types of primary care providers, intimately understand their challenges, and have customized our program to meet their needs.
• PCDC coaches have expertise in primary care operations, quality improvement, organizational change, sustainability and spread planning, and project management.
• YNH-CEPDR knows healthcare. As part of a five-hospital healthcare system, YNH-CEPDR combines a healthcare-focused approach to education and training with extensive emergency management expertise.
• YNH-CEPDR is focused on providing applicable, healthcare-tested education nationwide. YNH-CEPDR has experience in providing scalable, practical education and training in a variety of topical areas.

Client Successes—the Greatest Predictor of Future Outcomes is Past Performance

“PCDC has provided the structure and support necessary to enable us to develop a coherent and relevant emergency preparedness plan.” Reinaldo Gonzalez, CEO of Settlement Health

"The project has enabled us to move our hospital-based preparedness program beyond the walls of the hospital and into the community. Now the primary care sites are viewed as an extension of what the hospital can offer the community in an emergency situation. Thank you PCDC for an excellent program." Joan Sclafani, Department of Ambulatory Services, Associate Administrator, The Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center

"This collaborative is important for the clinics and the community...the sites can serve as a conduit for disseminating information to the community and community agencies as well as assist to coordinate activities in an emergency." Anthony Rajkumar, Associate Executive Director, Queens Hospital Center

 “The program has been a great benefit to our facility. It has enabled us to identify many issues that we overlooked in our current policies and procedures.” Anne Spellman, CEO/Administrator, UNION Community Health Center

“Participating in the Emergency Preparedness program was quite rewarding. I’m a firm believer in the Collaborative Learning Model. This particular project is well constructed and both the subject matter expert and PCDC coach provided great insight for us to understand our need to plan for emergencies.” Ralph P. Belloise, Practice Manager, Harlem United

"To my knowledge, there is no such training with such intensive supervision and follow-up available anywhere. We feel lucky to have had this experience and are hoping that [it] not only continues for us, but is expanded to the 21 sites at Montefiore. With a cohesive network that is Bronx-wide we will have a powerful force to be used towards fighting a variety of community emergencies."  Dr. Zach Rosen, Medical Director, Montefiore Family Health Center

If you would like to discuss your needs and how PCDC Primary Care Emergency Preparedness Core™can help, please contact Melissa Corrado at 212-437-3925, or mcorrado@pcdcny.org.