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History of ESAR-VHP & DHV
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ESAR-VHP Nationwide
Immediately after the attacks on September 11, 2001, tens of thousands of people spontaneously showed up at ground zero in New York City to volunteer their assistance. A large number of these volunteers arrived to provide medical assistance to the victims of the attacks. In most cases, authorities were unable to distinguish those that were qualified from those that were not qualified, though well intentioned. Because the response was unsolicited and there was no mechanism of coordination, those that presented themselves reduced the effectiveness of the overall response effort rather than helping. In addition to the experiences in New York City on 9/11, similar difficulties have occurred when the nation has had to respond to hurricanes, earthquakes, and other mass casualty events.
The goal of the ESAR-VHP program is to eliminate a number of the significant problems encountered when seeking to utilize medical and healthcare volunteers in a complex emergency response situation. The federal government’s intent is to provide states with options and flexibility to develop an ESAR-VHP system which best meets the states’ needs while enabling a national system of mutual aid.
The ESAR-VHP program is a state-based approach to establishing a national system. Each state is being tasked under the HRSA Hospital Bioterrorism Program to independently develop, maintain, operate, and manage an ESAR-VHP system. However, it is important that all members of the volunteer health community work together to ensure maximum surge capacity by establishing a system that facilitates the exchange of health care workers between jurisdictions. Such a system for mutual assistance will be a state, as well as national, asset.
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Disaster Healthcare Volunteers Program
California is in the process of developing the Disaster Healthcare Volunteers Program (which includes the ESAR-VHP component). As is the case nationally, many complex policy and implementation issues serve as the challenge to scope, design, implement, and evaluate Disaster Healthcare Volunteers System — as well as utilize the registry tool in its most useful and efficient manner.
California’s Disaster Healthcare Volunteers System will be supported by a robust registry where individuals can register and their data and will be maintained for potential disaster use. At this time, medical volunteers are the primary entity being registered within this statewide system. The Disaster Healthcare Volunteers Program is being designed as a statewide system, which operates in coordination with the state’s Operational Area emergency medical services and public health officials, to recruit, register, credential, track, identify, deploy, and maintain currently licensed volunteer healthcare professionals for response to emergencies, disasters and terrorist incidents in California and throughout the nation. |
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