The three FirstHealth of the Carolinas hospitals have received grants totaling more than $159,000 from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to assist in strengthening their disaster preparedness plans.

The N.C. Office of EMS applied for North Carolina’s share of the funding in conjunction with the state Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. Available funds then were distributed to hospitals throughout the state.

According to a funding formula, each hospital in the state (including military and veterans facilities) received $10,000. Additional funding was based on the average number of emergency department visits recorded by each hospital over the past three years.

FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital received $90,787; FirstHealth Montgomery Memorial Hospital in Troy, $29,911; and FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital in Rockingham, $38,353.

The funding will allow the hospitals and pre-hospital EMS health-care systems, in collaboration with state and local public health agencies, to respond to bioterrorism events or disasters.

A March 2003 hospital needs assessment determined how hospitals had progressed with their disaster plans. As a result of that assessment, the North Carolina Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Steering Committee developed funding guidelines for the statewide purchase and placement of disaster preparedness equipment.

In an attempt to assist every hospital with achieving disaster preparedness, an equipment inventory list that included such items as personal protective equipment, decontamination materials and medications was also developed.

Last fall, each hospital developed a grant proposal that was submitted to NCOEMS for consideration. Requested equipment and/or training was based on NCOEMS-identified critical benchmarks in such areas as hospital bed capacity, response plan to surge capacity, credentialing of clinicians, mutual aid and surveillance.

Patient tracking, terrorism preparedness exercises, isolation capacity, personal protective equipment, decontamination systems, communications, information technology, hospital laboratories, pharmaceuticals, and education were also considered.

Award decisions were made in mid-December, and the FirstHealth of the Carolinas facilities received grant funding in keeping with their requests.

“FirstHealth facilities are now implementing the tasks outlined in each of their proposals to better equip each facility and train staff to respond in the event of a bioterrorism event,” said Gayle Cook, risk manager for Richmond Memorial Hospital.

According to Barbara Bennett, FirstHealth’s director of risk management, the Disaster Committee at each hospital worked quickly to create its proposal and to determine which items would need to be purchased.