Twenty states met up to six of the 10 indicators which serve as a measure of their ability to respond to public health emergencies.

The rankings appear in a report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

That is the bad news.  Up to. That means many did not hit six measures.

Seven states met the standard for nine of the 10 measures, a major accomplishment.

That is great news.

The successful-states list varies by region, population density and size. Normally when these state performance report cards come out, you see more affluent regions scoring higher because they have more assets and a stronger infrastructure. For example, New York is here, no surprise.

However, Arkansas is one of the top performers. It usually scores near the bottom on the health status of its residents.  Oklahoma is not usually at the head of the class, either.

This is proof it is possible to achieve public health emergency readiness  if a state works at it.

That is good news, too.

Twenty states have a lot of homework to do, as this story shows.

Please do not think for one minute that, as the pandemic appears to be mild, these measures don’t matter.

Hospital surge capacity matters for all kinds of disasters. Surge capacity is a term used to describe how quickly a hospital can take an influx of patients for any number of reasons, not just those which center on infectious disease. A tornado. A flood. A plane crash.

Medpage Today

“Although states have made substantial progress in preparing for public health emergencies, the H1N1 pandemic has revealed remaining deficiencies, according to a new report.

“Of 10 key indicators of preparedness, 20 states achieved six or fewer; the worst performer, Montana, fulfilled only three, according to an assessment by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“There were seven states — Arkansas, Delaware, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont — tied for the highest score of nine out of 10.

“The unexpected emergence of pandemic H1N1 coupled with shrinking state budgets in a crumbling economy exposed problems with the public health infrastructure, including a lack of real-time coordinated disease surveillance and laboratory testing, outdated vaccine production techniques, limited hospital surge capacity, and a smaller public health workforce, the report stated.” (Emphasis added)

Source: Medpage Today, December 16, 2009