The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released the new report, Recommendations for a National Mass Patient and Evacuee Movement, Regulating, and Tracking System, which recommends developing a
coordinated multi‐jurisdictional evacuation system that builds on existing resources and procedures available at the state, local, and federal level.

To develop a national system to locate, track and regulate patients and evacuees
leaving disaster areas, the report recommends collecting eight essential data elements to identify each patient orevacuee, their health status and location from existing data sources like hospitals. It also recommends collecting baseline inventory levels of key resources such as available hospital beds and ambulances or other medical transportation.