New Hampshire's Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) for FY 2025 (BP2) - New Hampshire (NH) is a rural state with a population of approximately 1,402,054. Additionally, NH proudly offers tourist amenities such as the Lakes Region, White Mountain region, and the NH Motor Speedway. NH has ten (10) counties, two hundred and twenty-one (221) towns, thirteen (13) designated cities, and twenty-five (25) unincorporated communities. The healthcare system is led by twenty-six (26) acute care hospital systems, thirteen (13) of which are critical access hospitals and five (5) specialty hospitals including rehabilitative facilities and the State’s only Level 1 trauma facility. The median municipal population is twenty-five hundred (2,500) which demonstrates New Hampshire’s rurality. The NH public health system is a hybrid centralized and decentralized model within the NH Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Division of Public Health Services (DPHS) delivering essential public health programs. Some services, including Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) activities, are being accomplished via DPHS’s Bureau of Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (EPRR) in collaboration with local contracted community partners who operationalize the thirteen (13) Regional Public Health Networks (RPHNs). The cities of Manchester and Nashua operate independent local health departments and work in collaboration with DPHS to support the work of the RPHNs within their regions. EPRR serves as a bridge between local, state, and federal partners to assure health care delivery system preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities exist. Funding under this agreement will be used to continue supporting the Granite State Health Care Coalition (GSHCC) which is a single, statewide health care coalition serving all communities and healthcare sectors in NH. The GSHCC plans, trains, exercises and coordinates preparedness activities. Additionally, the GSHCC supports Emergency Support Function (ESF) #8 (Health & Medical) response efforts by managing information sharing, ensuring the healthcare organizations provide uninterrupted, optimal medical care to all populations during all-hazard emergencies, supporting medical surge operations, and supporting the implementation of plans, policies, and procedures to address patient care needs during any emergency or disaster. New Hampshire’s focus is to strengthen and enhance the health care delivery systems to respond effectively to mitigate loss of life and reduce threats to the community’s health and safety resulting from evolving threats and other emergencies within NH. To accomplish this, DHHS and the GSHCC will prioritize medical surge planning and implementing a robust exercise cycle focused on Medical Operations Coordination Cell (MOCC), surge staffing, neighborhood emergency help centers (NEHC), alternate care health systems, inventory management that reduces the impact of supply chain disruptions, continuity of operations with a focus on cybersecurity, and workforce resiliency, development, and retention. Planning, organization, equipment purchases, training, and exercises are critical to NH successfully responding to and recovering from all-hazard emergencies.
