Effectively responding to an incident across jurisdictions and coordinating with regional and jurisdictional partners is extremely challenging. The COVID-19 pandemic exemplified the need to develop an operational structure which would serve as a regional medical operations hub. Although there has been guidance for using a Medical Operations Coordination Cell (MOCC), the concept can be difficult to apply and develop for the specific needs of varying regions and jurisdictional entities.

The Mountain Plains Regional Disaster Health Response System (MPRDHRS) has developed a Medical Emergency Operations Center (MEOC) to address gaps in response coordination efforts across the six state Region VIII within the United States. This MEOC has been developed to synchronize and integrate existing systems and processes to manage the medical components of a response. This center is similar to other MOCC concepts. However, in a novel approach, the MPRDHRS organized a response framework that focuses on functional roles based on the specific needs of our region with response coordination and personnel availability. This organization is similar to the use of emergency support functions in a jurisdictional EOC.

While developing the MEOC, a local Lean team collaborated with the MPRDHRS on continuous improvement initiatives. Drills, workshops, and exercises were used to test the MEOC and offer just in time training to MPRDHRS members to staff different positions within the MEOC. The MEOC was activated for an incident response within the MPRDHRS region with many lessons learned.

The MEOC is a new, developing system augmented to meet the needs of regional partners. The system was developed using feedback and ideas from partners, process improvement experts, and internal team members. Additionally, lessons learned from incidents and applications of drills, workshops, and exercises will be shared to leverage within any organization.