The Regional Coordinating Center for Hurricane Response (RCC), operated since October 2005 by the Morehouse School of Medicine through its Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities, is continuing to respond to the devastation in the health care infrastructure in areas impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, RCC is coordinating the work of all the Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities in the southeast region, rebuilding and enhancing the health infrastructure in affected areas.

The damage to the Gulf Coast by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is estimated to exceed $100 billion. There have been more than 1,800 deaths, which amount to the costliest and deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. The full extent of the health care and financial impact on the health system of the Gulf Coast remains undetermined. However, it is evident that this disaster will complicate the delivery of care in a region that experienced major health disparities even prior to these severe tropical storms.

The RCC, at Morehouse's National Center for Primary Care, has developed significant partnerships with groups in the Gulf region to provide the practice-based infrastructure needed over the long term to eliminate health disparities in communities of greatest need. These include relationships with Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities, community health centers, local health departments, private health care providers, state primary care associations, businesses, and academic health care centers. This collaborative approach is designed to facilitate the building of a replicable and sustainable model of a balanced community health system in which public health, primary care, specialty care, and the research-based academic health center are integrated for the benefit of the larger community.

Evidence shows that people who were traumatized by the events which occurred during the hurricanes will most likely have a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders, including depression, which is also linked to a higher risk of hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. The project's telemedicine initiative, with a focus on telepsychiatry, as well as health screenings and ongoing community surveillance, are addressing chronic diseases associated with the storms. The RCC has also implemented electronic health records in medical offices and targeted personal health records projects for individuals in the most affected communities along the Gulf Coast. Some of the center's other activities have included the following:

• New Orleans Health Recovery Week 2006: Co-sponsored with the New Orleans Health Department and Remote Area Medical, it provided more than 6,000 people with free health care, including free prescription medication, dental care, optical examinations, and eyeglasses. $1.2 million in services were rendered.
• Katrina Phoenix Project: A partnership with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) that provides electronic health record and practice management system (PMS) hardware, software, and consulting services to medical practices.
• Research at Centers of Excellence on Health Disparities in the Gulf Region: Current projects include health needs assessments of hurricane evacuees and surveillance projects.

The RCC is also striving to identify lessons learned and link them to policy and practice options to improve access to an equitable, responsive, and sustainable health system for under-served populations and to reduce health disparities across socioeconomic and racial groups. One example of this commitment is the use of telehealth programming to address disparities in mental health care. This project is establishing telehealth sites in clinics in the Gulf region. In doing so, RCC is also working to eliminate some of the credentialing, malpractice insurance, and geographic barriers associated with delivering mental health care to hurricane-impacted areas.

What began in 2005 as a humanitarian effort to provide relief to the devastated Gulf Coast could develop into a more balanced community health system utilizing health promotion, disease prevention, and access to health care building a network that begins in one region and becomes translated into approaches that help to diminish health care disparities across the United States.

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