FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, December 6, 2005 Contact: Donald Salley (202.218.4417)

LACK OF PERFORMANCE TOOLS AND MEASURES UNDERMINES PREPAREDNESS EFFORTS

In response to today's release of the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) report card on our Nation's preparedness, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) calls on Congress to make new investments to eliminate the chaos and confusion that contributed to our woefully inadequate response to disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

The annual TFAH report reaffirms that our Nation still is not prepared to respond effectively to a natural disaster or act of terrorism. While some progress has been made, we are ill-prepared to ensure that basic human needs – food, shelter, drinking water, medical care, and safety – are met if, or when, a disaster such as pandemic flu strikes. The TFAH report goes on to recommend a greater focus on improving Federal and state government performance.

If one were to rate overall preparedness and response efforts of our Nation, Ron Bialek, PHF President, suggests that "We all would get an 'A' for effort, and an 'F' for measurable results." The Nation's communities deserve more than what we are providing them today. Public health agencies and other emergency responders have been given a bewildering array of thousands of preparedness guidelines, "critical tasks," and draft performance standards, with few concrete measures and virtually no help in managing results for the most important areas.

PHF calls on Congress to invest at least $3 million per year (less than 0.5% of current public health preparedness appropriations) for five years to help states and communities focus on critical performance measures, more effectively manage their preparedness efforts, and produce desired results. To set and meet basic standards for emergency preparedness and response, communities are in dire need of tools, expertise, and resources to apply techniques that will help them improve overall performance.

"To date, Congress and Federal agencies have focused on creating thousands of requirements that result in state and local agencies working harder, but not on achieving measurable results that make sense. Our agencies are indeed working harder than ever before, but not necessarily smarter," says PHF Board member and national expert on quality and performance improvement, Leslie Beitsch, MD, JD.

PHF Chair and former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ricardo Martinez, MD, compares community-level preparedness and response to a sports team pulling together to prepare, work hard and smart, and win games. "The team that practices the hardest is not necessarily the one that wins the game." Dr. Martinez continues, "There is a difference between trying hard and doing good. Every player of a winning team has a single focus on shared goals."

There continues to be no clear focus on a set of overarching community preparedness and response goals. "Rather," according to Dr. Martinez, "the focus remains on health departments, hospitals, emergency responders, and others each achieving their individual sets of goals. Without a common focus across and throughout a community and state, we will never win the preparedness and response challenges before us."

Dr. Beitsch comments, "It is time to create a culture of accountability. We must also ensure that those being held accountable have the necessary training, skills, tools, and flexibility to succeed. Investing in the infrastructure to support, manage, and produce results is the only sensible way for the Nation to spend its preparedness dollars wisely." Congress also must ensure that states and communities have funding flexibility and requirements to develop community and statewide measures that all sectors will work collaboratively to achieve.

PHF, through its Alliance for Achieving Results and Outcomes (AARO), is ready to act by working with the private sector and public health community to develop effective strategies, tools, training, technical support, and systems that will help communities develop and achieve measurable results that make sense and save lives. We can be successful by implementing community-wide actions to achieve a limited set of measures, such as ensuring the availability of food, shelter, drinking water, public safety, and medical care, in the event of a natural or manmade disaster.

"For an investment of less than a penny per person per year, Congress can turn the tide and begin moving the Nation in the direction of achieving results, not simply working harder," notes Bialek.