A new report from the World Institute of Disability, written by June Isaacson Kailes Disability Policy Consultant, Health Plan Member-Focused Emergency Practices Roadmap, investigates and documents promising member-centered emergency interventions. These critical procedures include applying lessons from COVID-19 and other co-occurring and previous emergencies.

The Roadmap’s purpose is to strengthen, create, promote, and embed emergency practices into member-centered health plans’ processes which help members successfully deal with, live through, and survive emergencies. Health plans are often overlooked as essential partners before, during, and after emergencies. Yet, more than any other service system, health plans, public and private, serve most people with disabilities in the United States.

Health plans play critical emergency roles in addressing and protecting their members’ resilience, health, safety, and independence. In emergencies, health plans can prevent or mitigate the cascading of adverse emergency effects of typically well-controlled chronic health conditions. Like a house of cards, the balance can easily be disrupted or collapse. Targeted prevention includes protection from degrading failure of:

• personal support systems
• loss of supplies
• loss of medications
• loss of technologies
• loss of customized accessible environments
• equitable access to disaster response programs, services, and activities

The audience for this Roadmap is broad and addresses a range of stakeholder concerns, including:

• frontline health plan staff and leadership
• medical service providers and home and community-based services
• provider organizations such as adult day programs, home health care services, and community-based agencies

Stakeholder concerns covered include the roles and possible actions of:

• accrediting organizations, standard-setting bodies, and quality assurance organizations
• disability-led, disability-focused, and community-based organization
• emergency management consultants
• emergency managers and planners
• Federal and state legislatures
• Federal, state, and local health agencies
• grantmakers
• health plan leadership and staff
• researchers  

Major focus of this Roadmap is:

• Health Plan Leadership
• Case management, care planning, and care coordination
• Pharmacy
• Member emergency communication
• Contractor and vendor agreements
• Community partnerships 
• Workforce training
• Policy change opportunities