Healthcare
Coordinating
Council
ASPR Mission and Priorities
ASPR’s mission is to save lives and protect Americans from 21st century health security threats. To do this, ASPR focuses on four priorities:
Providing Strong Leadership
ASPR provides strong leadership, including clear policy direction and improved threat awareness. We are working to secure the resources needed to ensure medical and public health preparedness for, response to, and recovery from disasters and emergencies.
ASPR provides strong leadership by:
Advising the Secretary on all matters related to federal public health and medical preparedness and response for public health emergencies. ASPR coordinates with all federal interagency partners.
Advising the HHS Secretary
Supporting readiness at the state, local, territorial, and tribal (SLTT) levels by coordinating federal grants and cooperative agreements and carrying out drills and operational exercises.
Supporting Readiness
Enhancing medical surge capacity by organizing, training, equipping, and deploying federal public health and medical personnel and providing logistical support during federal responses.
Enhancing Medical Surge Capacity
Leading policy formation by coordinating policy initiatives and providing strategic direction on all matters related to federal public health and medical preparedness and response.
Leading Policy Formation
Building a Regional Disaster Health Response System
ASPR is developing a regional disaster health response system (RDHRS) by leveraging and enhancing existing programs – such as the Hospital Preparedness Program and the National Disaster Medical System – to create a more coherent, comprehensive, and capable healthcare system integrated into daily care delivery.
The RDHRS will be a tiered system that emphasizes the use of local healthcare coalitions and trauma centers that integrate their medical response capabilities with federal facilities and local emergency medical services.
Integrating medical response capabilities, including federal facilities and emergency medical services (EMS).
Integrating Medical Response Capabilities
Expanding specialty care expertise in trauma and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear casualty management.
Expanding Specialty Care Expertise
Coordinating medical response through mutual aid across state, local, tribal, territorial, and regional jurisdictions.
Coordinating Medical Response
Integrating measures of preparedness into daily standards of care through healthcare system incentives.
Integrating Measures of Preparedness
Building on regional healthcare coalitions and better integrating public and private sector partners to improve preparedness and response.
Building on Regional Healthcare Coalitions
Sustaining robust and reliable public health security capabilities
ASPR advocates for the sustainment of robust and reliable public health security capabilities, primarily through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but also through other components of HHS, including an improved ability to detect and diagnose infectious diseases and other threats, as well as the capability to rapidly dispense medical countermeasures in an emergency.
ASPR promotes robust and reliable public health security capabilities at the federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal levels by advocating for:
Enhancing disease situational awareness domestically and abroad, including detection, identification, and investigation.
Enhancing Disease Situational Awareness
Strengthening disease containment, including capabilities for isolation, quarantine, social distancing, and decontamination.
Strengthening Disease Containment
Improving risk communication and public preparedness.
Improving Risk Communication
Ensuring rapid distribution and administration of medical countermeasures.
Improving Medical Countermeasure Distribution
Advancing an Innovative Medical Countermeasures Enterprise
ASPR advances an innovative medical countermeasures enterprise by capitalizing on advances in biotechnology and science to develop and maintain a robust stockpile of safe and effective vaccines, medicines, and supplies to respond to 21st century threats, such as chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents and attacks; emerging disease outbreaks; and pandemics.
ASPR oversees the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which leads the advanced research, development, and procurement of medical countermeasures.
ASPR enhances the medical countermeasures enterprise by:
Ensuring the medical countermeasures enterprise is driven by current and future threats.
Prioritizing Threats Effectively
Streamlining and simplify internal processes.
Streamlining Processes
Promoting innovation and capitalizing on advances in science and biotechnology.
Promoting Innovation
Sustaining the progress made in medical countermeasure preparedness over the last decade.
Sustaining Progress
Ensuring medical countermeasures can be rapidly dispensed and distributed to reach the people who need them.
Ensuring Rapid Distribution
Engaging and training first responders on the deployment and use of medical countermeasures.
Engaging and Training First Responders
