AHRQ recently released two interactive computer tools to help emergency planners and responders select and run alternate care facilities – locations that can easily and quickly be equipped to augment or replace health care services when hospitals and other traditional care sites are inoperable or overwhelmed. The two interactive computer tools allow users to input information about specific medical care needs and get feedback on which sites can become alternate care facilities or which patients can appropriately be moved to those sites.

Under contract to AHRQ, Denver Health developed these new tools as an update to an alternate care site selection tool it completed for AHRQ in 2004. In addition to changes that make the tools more user friendly, they have the capability to capture richer demographic information, a simplified system to rate facility characteristics and a “necessity level” indicator that allows users to evaluate individual facility characteristics based on local or regional need.

The tools “Disaster Alternative Care Facility Selection Tool” and “Disaster Alternative Care Facility Patient Selection Tool” are available on the AHRQ Web site at http://www.ahrq.gov/prep/acfselection/.