Hospitals should consider MOUs with organizations that can provide them resources and services during emergencies and disasters. MOUs are established between hospitals, other healthcare providers and/or emergency response agencies to identify their agreements to collaborate, communicate, respond and support one another during a disaster or other public health emergency. Understandings regarding the incident command structure, patient and resource management, processes and policies in place for requesting and sharing of staff, equipment and consumable resources, as well as payment, are generally addressed in a local mutual aid MOU.
MOUs help hospitals demonstrate and document compliance with Joint Commission, State and Federal expectations for collaborative planning and disaster response. MOUs are also a documentation asset when seeking federal reimbursement through FEMA after a disaster.
MOUs are also used by hospitals to document agreements with other organizations and agencies to provide transportation, consumables (e.g., water, food), equipment, personnel and many other resources and services that may be needed during a disaster event. These MOUs help to document a hospital’s ability to respond and to sustain operations.
Examples include MOUs with:
Sample MOU Documents:
The mutual aid support concept is well established and is considered “standard of care” in most emergency response disciplines. The purpose of this mutual aid support agreement is to aid hospitals in their emergency management by authorizing the Hospital Mutual Aid System (HMAS). H-MAS addresses the loan of medical personnel, pharmaceuticals, supplies, and equipment, or assistance with emergent hospital evacuation, including accepting transferred
patients.
The Mutual Aid Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a voluntary agreement among the hospital members, (name of hospital association or council) or (list hospitals party to MOU), for the purpose of providing mutual aid at the time of a medical disaster. For purposes of this MOU, a disaster is defined as an overwhelming incident that exceeds the effective response capability of the impacted health care facility or facilities. An incident of this magnitude will almost always involve (name of local) emergency management agency and (name of local) public health department. The disaster may be an “external” or “internal” event for hospitals and assumes that each affected hospital’s emergency management plans have been fully implemented.
This document addresses the relationships between and among hospitals and is intended to augment, not replace, each facility’s disaster plan. The MOU also provides the framework for hospitals to coordinate as a single H-MAS community in actions with (name of local) management agency, (name of local) public health department, and emergency medical services during planning and response. This document does not replace but rather supplements the rules and procedures governing interaction with other organizations during a disaster (e.g., law enforcement agencies, the local emergency medical services, local public health department, fire departments, American Red Cross, etc).
