Bioterrorism and mass casualty preparedness in hospitals United States, 2003

Summary: In response to the terrorism incidents of September 2001, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, requested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) survey hospitals regarding their preparedness for treating patients from bioterrorism attacks or mass casualty incidents. It provided funding to field a special supplement to the 2003 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). Data from the 2003 NHAMCS supplement will serve as a baseline for hospital terrorism preparedness because there were no major funding programs directed toward hospitals for this purpose prior to the start of the Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in fiscal year (FY) 2002. Even these funds had not yet been fully awarded to hospitals at the time this survey was fielded in 2003. Prior to the inception of the HRSA program, the Domestic Preparedness Program of the Department of Defense had not allocated any funding for hospitals, although it funded emergency response agencies.

Electronic resources