Emergency Management for the Outpatient Health Care Environment

Utilization of ambulatory and outpatient services for primary, specialty, and surgical care has risen in the United States over the last decade, in parallel with the evolution of health care emergency management. Regulatory and accreditation authorities; legislature and policies; and real-life events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires throughout the country have caused health care systems to take a more all-hazards approach for emergency management. While health care emergency management has grown tremendously in significance, outpatient settings have yet to see the same growth. However, concepts of comprehensive emergency management and the incident command system are important and valuable across all health care system settings, including outpatient facilities. The purpose of this article is to summarize regulatory requirements for outpatient health care emergency management, describe nuances of outpatient settings, and provide recommendations for how to successfully incorporate outpatient and ambulatory locations into the "Enterprise" model for comprehensive health care emergency management.