MISSION

The mission of this coalition is to develop and promote effective collaboration, planning, training, exercises, response, recovery and mitigation within the healthcare industry and for the residents and visitors in Broward County.

PURPOSE

To provide a forum for the health and medical community to integrate with one another and other response agencies at a county, regional and state level to promote emergency preparedness. To foster communication between local, regional, state and federal entities on community-wide emergency planning, response, recovery and mitigation. To ensure support overall readiness through coordination of community-wide training and exercises. To coordinate and improve the delivery of healthcare emergency response services.

Disaster and public health preparedness are concerns for healthcare facilities everywhere and Broward County is no exception. With a population of almost 2 million people and 24 hospitals in Broward County, preparation is paramount to ensuring the health and wellbeing of our community.

Our community depends on healthcare facilities to be prepared to deal with all types of events that can impact our county. Some events are familiar, such as hurricanes, while others are new, such as a pandemic influenza. Failure to prepare can result in adverse health effects on our community.

Healthcare facilities, however, cannot do this on their own. In recognition of this, the Broward County Healthcare Coalition (BCHC) was launched. The BCHC provides a forum for uniting hospitals with other relevant stakeholders in the community, to address healthcare emergency preparedness and response capabilities of healthcare facilities in Broward County.

This website provides information and resources to help healthcare facilities improve on existing preparation efforts, and to assist them in developing new plans to address emerging areas of concern.