Public Health Emergency Preparedness

Chapter 3: Emergency Requests

In the midst of an emergency or disaster you can use EPRI to request information from locations on their resource availability (or resource needs).

• Note the difference between inventory (e.g., "our hospital has 8 ventilators") and resource availability (e.g., "at the present time, our hospital can loan out 1 of our 8 ventilators").

There are four steps related to Emergency Requests:

1. The Requestor sends an emergency request to one or more EPRI locations—go to Chapter 3.1.
2. EPRI users at these locations receive an E-mail from EPRI indicating that they are being asked to respond to an emergency request.
3. EPRI users at these locations log in to EPRI and respond to the request—go to Chapter 3.2.
4. The Requestor monitors the responses—go to Chapter 3.3.

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3.1 Sending Emergency Requests

Feature Availability

The following types of users can create a new emergency request:

• Administrator.
• Data Manager.
• Reports and Emergency Requests Only.

Quick Summary

To send an emergency request to EPRI locations, log in to EPRI and:

• Step 1: Select New Request under the Emergency Request keyword.
• Step 2: Fill out the New Request form.

Step 1. Select New Request Under the Emergency Request Keyword

The first step in creating an Emergency Request is selecting New Request under the Emergency Request keyword (go to Figure 3.1).

Step 2. Complete the Send New Request Form and Select Send

Selecting the Create New Request button displays a popup window for creating a new request (go to Figure 3.2).

• Request name. Be sure to specify a meaningful name (i.e., subject) for the request.
• Message to Recipients. The text you type will appear in the E-mail to the recipients.
• Request type. The Request Type dropdown displays different types of requests that can be made—for example, "Available Now" or "Available Now, Available in 24 Hours, Available in 72 Hours."
• Location Group. The Saved Location Group dropdown list displays all the different location groups that have previously been created. Select either an existing Location Group or "New Location Group" to create a new Location Group. Go to step 4 in Chapter 2.3 for further information.
• Resource Group. The Saved Resource Group dropdown list displays all the different resource groups that have previously been created. Select either an existing Resource Group or "New Resource Group" to create a new Resource Group. Go to step 3 in Chapter 2.3 for further information.

When you select Send, EPRI sends an E-mail to all the EPRI users associated with the locations that you specified should receive the request.

3.2 Responding to Emergency Requests

Feature Availability

The following types of users can respond to an emergency request:

• Administrator.
• Data Manager.
• Data Entry.

Quick Summary

To respond to an emergency request, log in to EPRI and:

• Step 1: Select All Responses under the Emergency Requests keyword.
• Step 2: Select a Respond link.
• Step 3: Fill out the request form and select Submit.

Step 1. Select All Requests Under the Emergency Requests Keyword

When you select All Requests under the Emergency Requests keyword, you see a list of emergency requests that have been sent to locations for which you have data entry responsibility (go to Figure 3.3).

For each Emergency Request, the table shows:

• Date Sent. The date the request was sent.
• Sent By. The name of person who sent the request
• Request Name. The name assigned to the request.
• Sent To. The name of the location.
• Response Date. The date you responded to the request. If you have not yet responded to the request, the column will be blank.
• Responder. The name of the person who responded to the request. If you have not yet responded to the request, the column will be blank.
• Action. A link to either respond to the request or view the response that was previously submitted.

Step 2. Select a Respond Link

In the Action column there is a Respond link for any request that hasn't yet been responded to. Select the Respond link to respond to the Emergency Request (Figure 3.4).

Step 3. Fill Out the Request Form and Select Submit

Each request will ask you for certain information about a set of resources, depending on the Request Type specified when the request was created (go to Chapter 3.1 and Figure 3.2). An illustration is provided in Figure 3.5—in this example the request type is "Available Now, Available in 24 Hours, and Available in 72 Hours".

Fill out the text boxes with your responses. You can also enter comments at the bottom of the form (not shown in Figure 3.5). You must select the Submit button to submit the response.

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3.3 Monitoring Responses to Emergency Requests

Feature Availability

The following types of users can monitor responses to emergency requests:

• Administrator
• Data Manager
• Reports and Emergency Requests Only

Quick Summary

To monitor responses to an emergency request, log in to EPRI and:

• Step 1: Select All Requests under the Emergency Requests keyword.
• Step 2: Select either the Summary or Details icon for the request.
• Step 3: If in Step 2 you select a Details icon, select an icon in the View/Update column to see a location's response to the request.

Step 1. Select All Requests Under the Emergency Requests Keyword

Selecting All Requests under the Emergency Requests Keyword displays the Emergency Requests page, which contains one line for each Emergency Request that has been sent (go to Figure 3.6).

• The EPRI Administrator will see all Emergency Requests that have been sent in EPRI.
• Data Managers and Reports and Emergency Requests Only users will see only those Emergency Requests that they have sent.

The following information is displayed for each Emergency Request (go to Figure 3.6):

• Date Created. The date the Emergency Request was created.
• Request name. This is specified when the request is created.
• Location group. The name of the location group that was sent the Emergency Request.
• Locations. The number of locations sent the request.
• Responses. The number of locations that have responded to the request.
• Details icon. Select this icon to view individual responses from the locations that sent the request (go to step 2).
• Summary icon. Select this icon to see an aggregate report incorporating data from all the locations that received the request (go to step 2).
• Delete icon. Select this icon to delete the Emergency Request.

Step 2. Select Either the Summary or Details Icon for the Request

The Emergency Requests page contains one line for each Request (go to Figure 3.6). Each request has a Details Icon and a Summary Icon on the right hand side.

• Select a Details icon to view the responses to individual responses to the request (go to Figure 3.7), then select any of the icons in the "View / Update" column to see that location's response.

• Select an icon in the Summary column to view an aggregate report incorporating all responses to the request (go to Figure 3.8).

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