Northwest Healthcare Response Network

Watrac is a web-based application that enables healthcare organizations to coordinate patient care and balance patient loads across the region. Watrac provides daily tracking of facility status, bed availability and surgical specialist availability, as well as incident management and situational awareness during an emergency or disaster response. Nwhrn administers watrac in partnership with the washington state department of health.

Emergency response & general program: nwhrn leads multiagency and crossjurisdictionalcoordination to identify, collect and share data, incident information, resources, operational plans, and policy issues with the healthcare community and other emergency response agencies. Nwhrn builds cutting edge emergency response and recovery practices and uses our voice and our expertise to advocate for and develop policies and systems to improve disaster resilience. This includes maintaining a 24/7 duty officer and operating a healthcare emergency coordination center (hecc). The hecc coordinates the efforts of healthcare providers with public health and emergency management agencies, and local, state and national government partners. The hecc also coordinates disaster response activities such as medical surge across healthcare and coordinates mutual aid for resources needed by healthcare providers during an emergency. In sum, these activities help preserve life through the better coordination of healthcare services.

Training & exercises: nwhrn develops innovative, year-round training and exercise opportunities tailored to the unique needs of washington state's healthcare community. Nwhrn's scenario-based exercises provide healthcare partners and community the opportunity to practice, test and improve their disaster response plans.