In July 2008, KCER mailed 450 Community Partner Packets to state and federal emergency management, centers for public health preparedness, and other key stakeholders in disaster planning and response.

Educating stakeholders is vital to ensuring thorough preparedness and efficient response in the kidney community. Please feel free to download the Community Partner Packet contents to promote education in your community!

Community Partner Packet:

Community Partner Meeting Resources

Collaboration between dialysis facilities and their local emergency management agency isn't just a Condition for Coverage, it's a best practice to ensure emergency management knows and understands the needs of the kidney community in your area. You can use these resources to conduct a disaster drill so that both dialysis providers and emergency management officials are ready to respond in a disaster.

SURVIVING THE STORM: DISASTERS AND DIALYSIS (August 3, 2009; Dallas, Texas) was a forum to ensure effective preparedness and efficient response to disasters impacting kidney dialysis and transplant patients and facilities.

This conference focused on special requirements of dialysis and transplant patients, inclusion of the ESRD population in emergency and disaster plans, applying national emergency management principles to dialysis/transplant, disaster education to advance the quality of care, and weather service resources available to the kidney community.

SURVIVING THE STORM presentations and handouts:

Conditions for Coverage - Many of the stakeholders attending are non-ESRD and may not be aware of the requirements that ERSD facilities must fulfill for disaster preparedness. The beginning of the meeting will explain ESRD, the ESRD Network Program, the importance of disaster preparedness for ERSD and the KCER Coalition.

Patient Education - Because teaching patients effectively saves lives! This presentation stresses the importance of patient education for ESRD and disaster preparedness.

Medical Reserve Corps - The MRC helps organize local healthcare workers into volunteer groups. Remember, all disasters are local. The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) better prepares communities and health industry volunteers to respond to emergencies. In a disaster, your local MRC is already on-scene and will probably be the first responders to the emergency. This presentation emphasizes the MRC role and outlines how local volunteers help their communities.

Incident Command System - ICS for Healthcare was presented to ensure all attendees could gain certification. Being trained in ICS also helps the kidney community align with national response plans, language, and policies regarding how disasters are handled. The goal of this presentation ensures attendees can better understand emergency management organization and practices. Take the ICS-100.HC final exam in order to obtain your FEMA certificate.

National Weather Service - The NWS presented tools and resources available for the community to make local decisions. The presentation focused on understanding how severe weather can impact ESRD.