As of September 31, 2009, Santa Clara County Public Health Department is no longer an Advanced Practice Center (APC) site. To order APC toolkits, please visit the National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) web site.

The Santa Clara County Public Health Department was designated as an Advanced Practice Center (APC) in 2003 by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The mission of the APC program is to advance public health practice and improve local capacity to prepare and respond effectively to public health emergencies. APCs accomplish this primarily through developing cutting-edge tools and resources for other local public health agencies nationwide to use in their emergency preparedness planning efforts.

Public Health Emergency Preparedness Toolkits contain guidelines, strategies, insights and lessons learned, as well as key tools and prototypes for implementation for local public health departments to use and adapt.

New! Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
The Santa Clara County Public Health Department Advanced Practice Center created the CERT Pandemic H1N1 Influenza Train-the-Trainer Toolkit to assist local public health agencies in partnering with the CERT trainers in their jurisdictions to provide them with a pandemic H1N1 influenza training resource.

Crisis, Emergency and Risk Communications Web-Based Toolkit
A toolkit developed for Public Information Officers (PIOs) within public health departments to provide guidance and operational tools to be used during a public health emergency event.

New! Emergency Dark Site
An emergency dark site is a website that sits, ready, but not seen, until activated. This toolkit presents instructions to build, use and maintain an emergency dark site for public health emergencies. Start at "Learn" and follow the step-by-step instructions provided in this toolkit.

Hospital Surge Capacity Toolkit
A toolkit intended to assist healthcare facilities in thinking through critical issues related to healthcare surge and to create comprehensive plans to address these needs.

Managing Mass Fatalities Toolkit
A comprehensive toolkit that evolved from recognition of the need for communities to increase their preparedness for managing mass fatalities. Its focus—the care and management of the dead—is one of the most difficult aspects of disaster response and recovery operations. Toolkit materials are based on lessons learned from actual events, including the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. The toolkit provides scalable, operational direction and tools to guide jurisdictions in creating a local plan.

Mass Medical Care During an Influenza Pandemic: Guide and Tool Kit for Establishing Influenza Care Centers
A tool kit for local public health agencies to develop plans for medical mass care.

Pandemic Influenza School Planning Toolkit
A tool kit to assist local public health agencies in partnering with the schools within their jurisdictions for pandemic emergency preparedness planning. A plan template is provided to guide development of pandemic specific measures to augment a school's emergency crisis plan. The plan template is supported by several tools (e.g., communications tools and continuity of instruction tools) to assist schools in completing specific template sections. The template, when completed by a school, becomes the school's pandemic plan.

Public Health Workforce Training Plan (PHWTP)
A toolkit to guide local public health agencies in the development of a response-ready workforce by defining emergency response teams, functional roles, job classifications, knowledge and capabilities, and the training resources needed for staff to respond during various emergency response scenarios.

Other Resources

For more information about other APC sites, please visit the NACCHO web site.