View as Webpage

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response

This issue of The Express highlights the following new and updated resources:

• Play to Win: Health Care and Public Health Preparedness for Mass Gatherings (Webinar)
• Rural Disaster Health Topic Collection (Updated)
• Disaster Preparedness and Response Considerations for Freestanding Emergency Departments
• HHS emPOWER Program: Strengthening Winter Storm Response and Enhancing Rural Health Care Resilience
• Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals Annual Conference

In January, ASPR TRACIE and ASPR's Office of Medical Reserve Corps (OMRC) announced their collaboration to create a one-stop knowledge center for MRC units and volunteers to publicly house existing MRC-specific local, state, regional, and national information/resources. Be on the lookout for related announcements and feel free to reach out if you need technical assistance or have a resource to share.

Play to Win: Health Care and Public Health Preparedness for Mass Gatherings (Webinar)

The speakers in Play to Win: Health Care and Public Health Preparedness for Mass Gatherings highlight their experiences preparing for the 2026 World Cup games and related events being planned across the U.S. Topics include preparing for infectious disease incidents; how health care coalitions and MRC units can support regional planning and health care in a variety of settings; and how ASPR is preparing to provide support from a federal perspective. 

Rural Disaster Health Topic Collection (Updated)

Rural areas are served by a variety of health care facilities and practitioners who face specific challenges associated with workforce and other resource shortages, shrinking rural health care services, socioeconomic factors that add to resident health risks, and public health issues that often compete with the ability to plan for and respond to natural and human-caused events. The resources in the Rural Disaster Health Topic Collection include information for and lessons learned by health care practitioners who serve rural and tribal communities. 

Disaster Preparedness and Response Considerations for Freestanding Emergency Departments

More than 30 states currently have freestanding emergency departments (FSED). Disaster Preparedness and Response Considerations for Freestanding Emergency Departments provides considerations that can help FSEDs evaluate their risks and resources against a variety of scenarios (including mass casualty incidents) and determine whether there are gaps that need to be addressed through additional planning or training and exercising. 

HHS emPOWER Program: Strengthening Winter Storm Response and Enhancing Rural Health Care Resilience

The HHS emPOWER Program helps reduce health care system surge and protect electricity- and health care service-dependent individuals during winter storms nationwide, particularly in rural and resource-limited areas. Since 2016, states have used emPOWER’s suite of publicly available tools in advance of and during winter storms. For example, Wyoming has used the HHS emPOWER Emergency Response Outreach Dataset during various emergencies to conduct targeted wellness checks, assess medical needs, and deliver timely aid to at-risk community members in rural areas. Specifically, in response to a severe winter storm, Wyoming used the dataset to support multi-agency response outreach activities, coordinate with durable medical equipment suppliers, and conduct 25 wellness checks on at-risk individuals. To learn more about how HHS emPOWER Program data and tools are used to support risk-informed decision-making nationwide, check out the emPOWER in Action page.  

Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals Annual Conference 

Attending AHEPP 2026? Check out ASPR TRACIE’s session “Preparedness on Call: A Guidebook for Hospital Emergency Management” on February 25, at 2:45 CT. Speakers will discuss the development process of our Hospital Readiness and Response: An Online Guidebook and highlight existing and upcoming chapters.