目标:随着自然灾害变得更加频繁和严重,受影响国家通过志愿者迅速扩大其应对能力和促进恢复的能力变得越来越重要。然而,可能通过志愿者促进或阻碍增加的法律环境尚未得到充分探索。
方法:本研究利用政策监督方法,使用紧急法律清单数据库和Westlaw对搜索中确定的相关法律进行编码。
方法:我们评估了三个自然灾害多发州的法律:北卡罗来纳州,南卡罗来纳州,和格鲁吉亚。
方法:我们评估了责任保护的存在,许可互惠,以及医疗保健志愿者的执业法律范围。
结果:在三个评估的法律领域中,所有州的医疗保健志愿者的责任保护包含最有力的语言。责任保护适用,除非医疗保健志愿者鲁莽无视,故意的不当行为,或重大过失。然而,细微差别存在于哪些组织(州与慈善)志愿者有资格获得保险。进入受影响州的州外特定医疗保健专业人员的许可互惠在所有三个州都可用。然而,只有佐治亚州颁布了联邦示范立法,在证书和责任保护方面提供了额外的灵活性。最后,很少有法律涉及受影响州的实践范围。
结论:对影响卫生保健志愿者应对和从灾难中恢复的能力的法律的比较很少。需要进行更多的研究,以更好地了解在紧急情况下影响志愿者的法律,特别是公共卫生系统在向受影响的社区提供服务时任务过度。
OBJECTIVE: As natural disasters become more frequent and severe, the ability of impacted states to rapidly scale up their capacity to respond and facilitate recovery through volunteers is ever more crucial. However, the legal landscape that may facilitate or hamper augmentation through volunteers has yet to be fully explored.
METHODS: This study utilized policy surveillance methodology to code relevant laws identified in searches using the Emergency Law Inventory database and Westlaw.
METHODS: We assessed laws in three natural disaster-prone states: North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
METHODS: We assessed the presence of liability protection, license reciprocity, and scope of practice laws for health care volunteers.
RESULTS: Of the three assessed legal domains, liability protection for health care volunteers across all states contained the most robust language. Liability protections apply unless the health care volunteers act with reckless disregard, willful misconduct, or gross negligence. However, nuance exists based on which organizations (state vs charitable) volunteers are affiliated with to qualify for coverage. License reciprocity for out-of-state specific health care professions entering the impacted states was available across all three states. However, only Georgia enacted federal model legislation that provides additional flexibility regarding credentialing and liability protections. Lastly, very few laws addressed the scope of practice in impacted states.
CONCLUSIONS: Comparisons of laws that impact the ability of health care volunteers to respond and recover from disasters are scarce. More research needs to be performed to better understand the laws that impact volunteers in emergencies, particularly as the public health system is overtasked when providing services to impacted communities.