Case Study: Emergency System for Advanced Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals (ESAR-VHP) Pilot Exercise

The Lewin Group evaluated a pilot exercise of federal-state communications protocols to mobilize volunteer health professionals in an emergency.

The study included development of a communications assessment checklist, on-site observers in four states and in the HHS Emergency Operations Center, an After-Action Report, and presentations at two national conferences.

• The exercise started with four emails to state coordinators and ended 36 hours later with almost 400 volunteers ready to deploy
• State spam filters trapped time-sensitive information
• We identified the need to train federal and state personnel in informatics skills, including competencies with software such as spreadsheets and health alerting systems