February Updates:

HHS/ASPR Project ECHO Clinical Readiness Rounds Sessions
Starts February 6, 2024​
ASPR's Office of Health Care Readiness (OHCR), in partnership with Project ECHO and dozens of other collaborating organizations, is planning to launch a new, virtual, peer-to-peer learning series, the HHS/ASPR Project ECHO Clinical Readiness Rounds. The series will focus on sharing clinical challenges and successes in preparing for and responding to disasters from all threats and will build off of the successes from the prior partnership between OHCR and Project ECHO in conducing the COVID-19 Clinical Rounds between March 2020 and February 2022.  Clinical Readiness Rounds sessions will occur every other Tuesday from 12:00 - 1:00 PM ET, with the first session, entitled "Where Are We? Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?" to take place next Tuesday, February 6.  Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) credit will be available to participants in future Clinical Readiness Rounds sessions, however neither CME nor CNE credit will be available for the initial sessions in February 2024.

Registration for the Clinical Readiness Rounds is open. Select here to register.


​FEMA Releases New Exercise Starter Kits
February 13, 2024
Exercises help the whole community to prepare for disasters and emergencies by providing opportunities to shape planning, assess and validates capabilities, and address areas for improvement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Exercise Division (NED) has developed ten new Exercise Starter Kits to support exercise practitioners and emergency managers at all levels of government, the private sector and nonprofit organizations as they plan, conduct, and evaluate their exercises.

The ten new kits cover the following topics:

• Climate resilience.
• Climate adaptation.
• Complex incident coordination.
• Large-scale population movement and resettlement.
• Mitigating social isolation and loneliness.
• Community preparedness and response to the opioid crisis.
• Enhancing supply chain resilience.
• Recovery.
• Community profile.
• Reunification.

The new kits align with FEMA’s 2023-2026 National Exercise Program Principals’ Exercise Priorities. Each kit contains a sample exercise facilitator and evaluator guide, sample conduct slides, a sample situation manual and a customizable placemat. All Exercise Starter Kits are available in the Emergency Management Toolkit section of FEMA’s Preparedness Toolkit.

FEMA will host a series of webinars to discuss the new kits. All webinars will offer the same content. Registration is not required to attend. Visit FEMA’s Adobe Connect Room for the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) during one of the times listed below to participate:

• Session 1: Thursday, Jan. 25, at 5 p.m. EST.
• Session 2: Wednesday, Jan. 31, at noon EST.
• Session 3: Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 9 a.m. EST.

If you are unable to attend one of the webinars listed above, a recorded version of the webinar will be available on the Preparedness Toolkit HSEEP Webinars page starting Feb. 1.
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].


American Medical Association (AMA): What Value-Based Care Is, and Why Everyone Is Talking About It
What is value-based care? Interest in value-based care is at an all-time high. The latest episode of the AMA Update podcast gives an overview of this payment model and explores what's driving this growing interest in it and where the conversation about value-based care is headed in 2024.
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Listen to the full podcast episode from AMA.
Listen to the full podcast episode from AMA.