National Health Security Strategy

The National Health Security Strategy (NHSS) is a stretegic plan developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that is intended to help galvanize efforts to minimize the health consequences associated with significant health incidents. The purpose of the NHSS is to focus the patchwork of disparate public health and medical preparedness, response, and recovery strategies in order to ensure that the nation is prepared for, protected from, and resilient in the face of health threats or incidents with potentially negative health consequences.

The NHSS presents a vision for National Health Security and details the associated goals, objectives, implementation, and evaluation criteria.

This will strengthen the community, integrate response and recovery systems, generate a framework for accountability and continuous quality improvement, and create seamless coordination between all levels of the medical system. The resulting NHSS will provide a common vision for how the nation will achieve national health security.

The NHSS was developed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, including representatives from local, state, territorial, tribal, and federal government; community-based organizations; private-sector firms; and academia. The NHSS was developed as required by the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act

The National Health Security Strategy

The National Health Security Strategy (NHSS)^[1] is intended to help galvanize efforts to minimize the health consequences associated with significant health incidents. It provides the framework for how the nation will seek to achieve national health security over the next four years. It was developed in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, including representatives from local, state, territorial, tribal, and Federal government; community-based organizations; private-sector firms; and academia.

The vision for health security described in the NHSS is built on a foundation of community resilience - healthy individuals, families, and communities with access to health care and with the knowledge and resources to know what to do to care for themselves and others in both routine and emergency situations.

The NHSS reflects current approaches and priorities for improving the nation's ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from a major health incident. The NHSS also acknowledges that achieving national health security is a long-term proposition, one that requires a process of continuous learning and improvement, strict accountability, a willingness to engage domestic and global partners, and an on-going commitment to measuring, evaluating, and improving our collective ability to recognize, confront, and resolve existing and emerging threats to the nation's health.

Interim Implementation Guide

Accompanying the NHSS is the Interim Implementation Guide,^[2] which describes activities, most of which are already under way, that will take place during the nine-month period from January 2010 through September 2010.

Fully realizing the NHSS's goals and strategic objectives will require detailed planning to guide implementation. Such detailed guidance will come in an Implementation Plan, the first version of which is scheduled for September 2010, which will be revised every two years. Until the Implemenation Plan takes effect, the Interim Implementation Guide describes initial implementation activities, providing the foundation for a more complete biennial implementation planning process.

Biennial Implementation Plan

To help the Nation achieve national health security and to implement the first quadrennial National Health Security Strategy (NHSS) of the United States of America (2009), the U.S. Government is drafting an NHSS Biennial Implementation Plan (BIP).^[3]. This document is intended to describe the priority activities to occur during the first two years (FY11 and FY12) of the strategy’s implementation. The document will be available for public comment in July 2010.

Legal Authority

The Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) was enacted in 2006 to improve the nation’s ability to detect, prepare for, and respond to a variety of public health emergencies. Among other things, PAHPA directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a National Health Security Strategy, presented to Congress in December 2009 and to be subsequently revised every four years afterward. The statutory authority and requirements for the NHSS are provided under section 2802 of the Public Health Service Act.

References

1. ^ National Health Security Strategy (December 2009)
2. ^ NHSS Interim Implementation Guide (December, 2009)
3. ^ Biennial Implementation Plan. Office of the Asstant Sectretary for Preparedness and Response

External links

• National Health Security Strategy