Outbreak Preparedness and Response

Outbreak preparedness and response involves coordinated planning and action to prevent, detect, and manage infectious disease threats and public health emergencies in healthcare settings. It focuses on strengthening infrastructure, communication, and protocols to ensure care continuity, protect healthcare personnel and patients, and limit the spread of infection during outbreaks, pandemics, or disasters.

Current and emerging threats
Influenza
Mpox
Measles

Education, guidance, and resources

• Outbreak Response and Incident Management: SHEA Guidance and Resources for Healthcare Epidemiologists in United States Acute-Care Hospitals (Banach et al. ICHE Dec. 2017) provides healthcare epidemiologists with a comprehensive overview of incident management during infectious disease outbreaks, strategies for preparedness, response, and recovery, and how to integrate epidemiology expertise in broader emergency management frameworks.
• SHEA/CDC Outbreak Response Training Program (ORTP) Tool Kits: fillable forms, scripts, checklists, infographics and more for the role of the hospital epidemiologist in HICS, regulatory and legal considerations, and communication during public health emergencies
• Effective Communication During a Crisis Webinars

• Vaccination:
  • Outbreak Response Training Program (ORTP) Vaccination Tool Kit
  • Weber DJ, Al-Tawfiq JA, Babcock HM, et al. Multisociety statement on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination as a condition of employment for healthcare personnel. ICHE. 2022;43:3-11.
  • Schaffzin JK, Murthy ARK, Deloney VM, et al. A guide to implementing COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment in healthcare facilities. ICHE. 2022;43:1753-1754.
  • Talbot TR, Babcock H, Caplan AL, et al. Revised SHEA Position Paper: Influenza Vaccination of Healthcare Personnel. ICHE. 2010;31:987-995.

External resources

• The CORHA Principles & Practices for Outbreak Response is a comprehensive, evidence-based resource that guides public health and healthcare professionals through all phases of managing HAI/AR outbreaks, including planning, detection, investigation, control, and communication. It also covers specialized topics like laboratory best practices and contaminated medical product investigations, with free interactive training courses available to support practical application of these strategies.
• CDC Healthcare Pandemic Preparedness Resources
  • ASPR Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (TRACIE):
  • ASPR Healthcare planning checklist
  • Healthcare Coalitions
  • Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP); Dashboard map
  • Disaster Available Supplies in Hospitals (DASH): interactive tool to estimate supplies for mass casualty incidents and infectious disease emergencies based on hospital characteristics
  • Crisis Standards of Care (CSC)
  • Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
• National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC): (materials, consultation and support, research, policies, procedures)
• Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance (ERHMS) Online Training Course: recommendations and tools for all phases of response, for emergency personnel, and epidemiologists

Reports and maps:

• CDC Health Alert Network (HAN)
• WHO Disease Outbreak News (DON)
• Healthmap (map with counts of current outbreaks, Disease Daily newsletter)
• Travel Health Pro (outbreak surveillance, briefs, fact sheets)
• CDC National Center for Health Statistics
• HHS empower Map: interactive map overlaying hazard data and at-risk communities (hospice care, electricity-dependent treatments, at home care, etc.)