Imagine you have recently started a new position with a local health department. The main focus of your position is implementing a health care coalition (HCC). The hospitals in the region that fall within the HCC's geographical boundaries are well liked by the community and give back to many programs. Many people think the hospitals have gone above and beyond and are satisfied with their involvement in the community. You live in a community where there have been only a handful of small natural or manmade disasters resulting in very few casualties. The healthcare coalition has been around for a few years, is considered well established, has the required four core partners (hospitals, EMS, emergency management, and public health), and has several other healthcare partners (four skilled nursing facilities, one dialysis agency, two home health agencies, one health care vendor, and occasionally a neighboring jurisdictional partner) that attend every other monthly meeting. Since you are new to your role and the area, you do not know all the health care partners or the health care politics. Some of your first HCC tasks are drafting a HCC response plan, executing a no-notice health hospital evacuation (to include receiving patients at other health care facilities in the region) and identifying the needs of the HCC.

1. HCC core membership is attending meetings and those that represent the core members are engaged but their leadership does not understand or agree with allocating additional resources outside of attending monthly meetings. How would you engage their leadership? What initiatives (assuming you have not funds to provide them) do you have? How do you get their buy-in?

2. How would you engage HCC partners to increase participation in the coalition?

3. How do you convince healthcare partners to participate in a no-notice evacuation costing thousands of dollars and assist in developing a HCC response plan without giving them a monetary reimbursement?

4. Healthcare partners are asked to continually assess their needs and gaps. As part of a grant requirement you need them as a HCC to identify their needs. How do you go about identifying the HCC's needs? How do you get participation in the process?