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Abstract
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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) needs better strategic planning to ensure it has enough physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals enrolled in the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), according to a recent report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The NDMS was established in the 1980s to respond to military casualties but now also assists during events affecting civilians. NDMS personnel have private sector jobs but serve intermittently as federal employees to lead the public health and medical response to natural disasters and national emergencies such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As of March 27, NDMS had deployed 1200 pandemic responders, according to the GAO report. Some helped move potentially infected US residents from cruise ships to quarantine locations in the states.
In 2018, HHS set an enrollment target of 6290 responders for NDMS, but the GAO found it did not follow key principles of strategic workforce planning when it determined that number. For example, the GAO said, HHS failed to identify the critical skills and competencies the NDMS workforce needs. Therefore, the agency can't be sure its enrollment target would provide an adequate number of responders with the necessary skills for an effective response to national disasters...
Language: en |