As the holiday season approaches, the ASPR TRACIE team extends our sincere gratitude to you, our partners and stakeholders, for the hard work you do every day to advance your communities' health care system preparedness, response, and recovery capacities and capabilities. Your efforts ultimately improve our nation’s resilience and ability to withstand a variety of disaster scenarios. It has been a challenging few months for our country, and we hope you have been able to take some time to reflect and find joy and peace. Our goal is to help make your jobs easier; please don’t hesitate to reach out to us anytime with questions or suggestions. 

This issue of The Express includes information on our new resource pages, new and updated tools for health care coalitions (HCC), information on recent and upcoming ASPR TRACIE webinars and events, reminders regarding the CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule, and domain updates. 

On November 1, health and social service representatives from Louisiana shared lessons learned from the 2016 floods on the Health and Social Services Recovery Lessons Learned from the 2016 Louisiana Flooding webinar. Learn how they managed their recovery; organized, designed, and implemented federally compliant recovery programs; and delivered the best possible services to their communities. 

ASPR TRACIE and the National Ebola Training and Education Center (NETEC) collaborated on the Highly Pathogenic Infectious Disease Exercise Planning for Health Care Coalitions webinar on November 9. This fourth in a series of joint webinars highlighted NETEC’s free exercise templates for HCCs to test their readiness to manage patients suspected or known to have a highly infectious disease and featured speakers from HCCs that have already exercised their plans.

Attending the National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness Conference? Now you can register for these pre-conference workshops scheduled to take place on November 28, from 1-5 p.m.:

• Applying Healthcare Emergency Management Principles to Real Disasters – Medical Response to Hurricane Harvey
• CMS: What It Is, How You Can Comply, and How It Will Save Lives
• Healthcare Emergency Management 2.0
• Healthcare Facility Cyberterrorism: Coming Soon to Your Healthcare Facility and Coalition

Check out ASPR TRACIE’s panel on November 29, from 10:45 a.m.-12 p.m., where our team will share information on just-released tools for coalitions. Don’t forget to stop by our poster presentation on Disaster Medication Stocking and Shortages, too.

Have you taken the CMS Emergency Preparedness Training Online Course yet? It is available 24/7 and required for all State Survey Agency and Regional Office surveyors and reviewers who conduct or review health and safety or Life Safety Code surveys for emergency preparedness requirements (non-survey professionals involved in and responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations are also encouraged to take the course). Accessing the course is simple: When you navigate to the Integrated Surveyor Training Website, click on "I am a Provider." Next, click on the course catalog and search for the “Emergency Preparedness” course. You do not need a username and password when accessing the course through the provider link. If you need technical assistance, please contact the CMS ISTW Help Desk via phone (1-855-791-8900) or email. The implementation date for surveying on the emergency preparedness requirements began on November 15.

Additional resources can be found on the ASPR TRACIE CMS EP Rule page and in the recently updated ASPR TRACIE CMS and Disasters: Resources at Your Fingertips document.