Partnership for Disaster Health Response | EP HIT 18 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for EP HIT 18 001

The Partnership for Disaster Health Response (Funding Opportunity Number EP-HIT-18-001) is a federal cooperative agreement offered by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) under CFDA 93.817, focused on improving how patient care is coordinated during disasters when normal healthcare systems are under extreme strain. The opportunity is built around the concept of a Regional Disaster Health Response System (RDHRS), which is a tiered approach that strengthens coordination from the local level up through state and multi-state regional levels. Rather than replacing everyday referral networks or changing routine patient movement, RDHRS is meant to define how clinical care and patient distribution should function when catastrophic events overwhelm typical capacity and capability, forcing decisions about redistribution of patients, bringing in outside resources, and applying resource utilization guidelines during crisis conditions.

The core purpose of the RDHRS model is to close gaps in coordinated patient care by improving communication, clinical coordination, and access to specialized expertise during emergencies. ASPR highlights three main objectives: first, improving two-way communication and situational awareness between healthcare organizations and local, state, regional, and federal partners so decision-makers have a clearer picture of real-time needs and constraints; second, leveraging and expanding highly specialized clinical capabilities that are essential in unusual hazards or catastrophic events, such as burn care, trauma, pediatrics, and infectious disease; and third, strengthening the way healthcare coalitions connect across the whole community by ensuring they can quickly reach clinical capabilities that are often missing in current coalition structures. In practice, the model tries to blend horizontal integration (the broad network of community stakeholders already involved in healthcare coalitions) with vertical integration (direct access to high-level specialty centers and expert clinical assets that can guide care decisions and patient movement).

At the state level, the RDHRS concept emphasizes better statewide visibility into healthcare capacity and capability, clearer mechanisms to coordinate and prioritize patient transfers, stronger processes and policies for managing scarce resources, and reliable pathways to bring specialty clinicians into planning and response. The idea is that if a state can more accurately track what resources exist, where bottlenecks are forming, and which facilities can take certain types of patients, it can respond more effectively within its borders and also support other states when interstate assistance is needed. At the multi-state regional level, the RDHRS focus expands to sharing clinical expertise for low-probability but high-consequence threats, including chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents, and building workable mechanisms to move patients and coordinate care across jurisdictional boundaries. The program is also designed to connect with established national capabilities and networks already oriented to specific hazards, such as biologic and radiologic response and trauma systems, so the RDHRS demonstration sites are not operating in isolation.

This funding opportunity is not intended to stand up the entire RDHRS nationwide in one step. Instead, it funds a limited number of demonstration projects to test the model, surface operational challenges, develop best practices, and show whether the approach is viable and effective. The work is centered on building and maturing the partnerships needed to manage disaster patient care, including rapidly expanding medical surge capacity, coordinating patient and resource movement, and ensuring that key clinical specialists can be engaged quickly to shape response decisions. Overall, the intent is to strengthen response performance for both smaller incidents and major disasters by making clinical coordination a more formal, reliable, and practiced part of preparedness.

ASPR planned to fund two partnerships as demonstration sites. Eligibility is structured around forming a partnership that includes specific required members consistent with Section 319C-2(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act. A qualifying partnership must include one or more hospitals, with at least one designated trauma center, plus one or more additional local healthcare facilities such as clinics, community health centers, primary care facilities, mental health centers, mobile medical assets, or nursing homes. It also must include governmental participants, specifically one or more political subdivisions and either one or more states or a combination of states and political subdivisions. Applicants are expected to propose a governance structure capable of coordinating healthcare assets across the awardee state and positioned to share information and medical assets with other states in the same HHS region. While the capabilities align with and complement the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), this FOA puts heavier emphasis on clinical coordination for disaster response, particularly around specialty expertise and patient movement decisions.

Key administrative details include that the opportunity was categorized as discretionary and used a cooperative agreement funding instrument, reflecting that ASPR would likely have substantial involvement in guiding or collaborating on the project direction and deliverables. The activity category is disaster prevention and relief. The original closing date listed was August 15, 2018, the award ceiling was up to $6,000,000, and the eligible applicant types included state governments and other eligible partnership entities meeting the required membership structure.

• The Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the disaster prevention and relief sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Partnership for Disaster Health Response" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.817.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-06-14.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-08-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $6,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, Others.

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