About
Steering HealthCare Emergency Preparedness in the Ocean State
HEALTHCARE COalition of Rhode ISLAND (HCRI)
Mission
The Healthcare Coalition of Rhode Island Rhode Island (HCRI) is a statewide healthcare emergency preparedness coalition that has been in place since 1999. While the Coalition has undergone several name changes over the years its mission has remained the same: to serve as a forum for cooperation among organizations to develop a networked plan for interaction and collaboration in disaster-related planning, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts that address Rhode Island’s healthcare system.
Objectives
HCRI provides two main functions for its membership:
- A forum to facilitate information sharing among its members. Information, such as best practices, lessons learned from exercises and real-world events, details on upcoming events of interest, intelligence on new or emerging threats, etc., is routinely shared in HCRI, both during scheduled meetings and on an ongoing basis through email and other means.
- A mechanism to enhance coordination among its members and with response agencies outside the healthcare sector during emergency responses. The structure of HCRI, with its direct connection to the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and the Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI), provides external response agencies a single, unified means of interaction with the healthcare sector, thus ensuring an accurate and valid common operating picture for the overall response. The information sharing mechanisms within the Coalition also lend to enhanced coordination among its members during responses