New Hanover County, North Carolina, built and maintained a voluntary special needs emergency registry through their Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). The registry was initiated in 1997 and housed under the Department of Emergency Management until 2003, when grant funds became available to support maintenance of a registry by RSVP. Volunteers maintain the database through three teams: (1) the Community Outreach Team, which presents information about the registry program to local community-based organizations; (2) the Central Database Team, which updates registry information in an Access database; and (3) the Telephone Response Team, which calls registry participants twice a year to update their personal and emergency information. During an emergency, volunteers who staff the telephone response team will receive a script tailored to the specific event (e.g., pandemic flu may be a script of Health Department recommendations). RSVP volunteers and home health nurses (if needed) encourage and assist registrants to build a personal preparedness plan. Volunteers are required to attend annual training, which includes basic emergency preparedness planning and HIPAA regulations prior to participating with the Telephone Response Team. All RSVP volunteers sign a confidentiality agreement. Volunteers refer registrants to the county's Special Needs Task Force if they require additional assistance. The Task Force is comprised of members from more than 20 social and clinical service organizations, such as home health care, long-term care providers, hospitals, case management and safety, the Department of Aging, Social Services, the Health Department, transportation agencies, Emergency Management and local mental health professionals. The Task Force has established the Individual Care Coordination Center, which is a command center that is activated during an emergency in order to coordinate resources made available by participating Task Force agencies. Members of the Task Force are called upon to offer available services during an emergency, including providing nurses to help with triage calls; authorizing beds within participating long term care facilities, and providing transportation. New Hanover County's voluntary registry endeavors to reduce the impact of an event on this fragile population, by decreasing their exposure to risks. This is accomplished utilizing the RSVP Volunteers and the resources of the agencies participating in the Special Needs Task Force. One reviewer thought that the encouragement and assistance registrants receive from volunteers and local professionals provided a non-threatening method of gathering important triage information. Ultimately, the combination of personal preparedness and county service agency involvement may reduce registrants' reliance on county response services during an emergency.
