Emergency Care In Public Health

A public health emergency is described as "an emergency need for health care [medical] services to respond to a disaster, significant outbreak of an infectious disease, bioterrorist attack, or other significant or catastrophic event" in the National Disaster Medical System Federal Partners Memorandum of Agreement. "A public health emergency may include, but is not limited to, public health crises proclaimed by the Secretary of HHS [Health and Human Services]," according to the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) definition. In accordance with section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, a public health emergency was declared in relation to the Red River flood in North Dakota in March 2009. This declaration gives the state government the right to ask the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Regional Office to waive specific Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP regulations in accordance with section 1135 of the Social Security Act. Examples include enabling Medicare health plan users to travel outside of their network, allowing critical access hospitals to accept more patients than the legally required maximum of 25, and excluding evacuated patients' anticipated lengthier stays from the 96-hour average.