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Organization Spotlight - December 2005

In 2002, Congress authorized the development of an Emergency System for Advance Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals (ESAR-VHP) with the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. Mass casualty events—such as hurricanes disasters and the September 2001 terrorist attacks—increased the awareness for public health emergency preparedness, which emphasized the need for a supplemental health care workforce that can be mobilized to respond to such events. It also highlighted the need for a system to pre-identify the licenses and credentials of medical volunteers.

ESAR-VHP is a national initiative of the Department of Health and Human Services and is implemented by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The program’s goal is to standardize how states develop a pre-registration system for emergency volunteer health professionals to create a national system where these volunteers can be easily identified to assist in emergency response. The system is designed to maximize the ability for health professionals to volunteer across state lines. A state ESAR-VHP system will provide for the standardized credentialing of MRC members who may volunteer for a disaster outside their community.

The MRC program is currently involved in an integration project with ESAR-VHP that will address the challenges that exist in having a standardized state-based credentialing system for local MRC volunteers. The objective of the integration project is to effectively integrate local MRC units into state incident command structure (ICS) and the nation’s mutual aid structure. An ESAR-VHP Credentialing System will facilitate the collection and transmission of information and management standards between MRCs and state ESAR-VHPs.

Last Updated on 5/25/2006