HHS Criticized for Progress on Responder Health Programs
A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued this past spring took the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to task for not implementing five recommendations that the GAO derived from its study of responder health programs set up after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
The recommendations addressed both physical and mental health fallout facing first responders to such events and mirrored those delineated in May in the Mt.Sinai Journal of Medicine study by Craig Katz, M.D., et al. (see Original article: Sept. 11 MH Studies Teach Lessons for Future Disasters).
The GAO said that to better prepare for similar catastrophic disasters in the future HHS should create a system to:
Register all responders | |||||
Use screening and monitoring programs | |||||
Employ timely mental health screening and monitoring that is integrated with general health | |||||
Offer a referral process that includes better access to treatment | |||||
Provide comparable access to services for all responders, regardless of employer or geographic location. | |||||
HHS, said the GAO, had begun work only on the question of registration but“ has not developed a department-level plan for designing and implementing responder health programs that incorporate the five lessons from the [World Trade Center] health programs.” The best the department has done is to develop a proposal for a project to develop strategies,” the GAO stated.
The GAO report is posted at<www.gao.gov/new.items/d08610.pdf>.▪
