Abstract
The high elder care death toll of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, pushed the federally mandated Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program (LTCOP) into the unsought and unforeseen realm of disaster preparedness. This new role was an extension of the LTCOP’s historic resident’s rights investigative case advocacy. To assess if, how, and to what extent local ombudsmen adapted to this new function, 102 local LTCOP leaders completed a telephone survey based on the CMS Emergency Planning Checklist. This assessed their own and their programs’: (a) readiness to help facilities reduce disaster threats to residents, (b) familiarity with relevant disaster laws, rules, and resources; (c) readiness to help residents through the disaster cycle; and (d) levels of disaster training and/or their plans to provide such training to their staff and LTC stakeholders. Forty-two respondents (41.13%) had experienced a public disaster but over half or those responding (n = 56, 54.90%) felt fairly to somewhat prepared to help in a public crisis. After being ready to work away from their office during a crisis (
Funding source: Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging
Funding: This research was partially funded by a grant from the Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging. https://borchardcla.org/academic-research-grant-program/current-and-past-recipients.
Competing interests: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and or publication of this article.
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