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Emergency Management – Duration for Continuing Disaster Privileges

What is the length of time volunteer licensed practitioners (LP) can provide care under the disaster privileging option ?

Any examples are for illustrative purposes only.

Volunteer Licensed Practitioners that have been granted disaster privileges may continue to provide care, treatment and services under the disaster privileging option (see EM.02.02.13) for the period of time the organization continues to operate under its Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). Organizations should periodically assess the number and specialty of those volunteer practitioners initially granted disaster privileges to ensure the ongoing needs of the patient population are being met and that the medical staff can maintain oversight over practitioner performance.

If an important patient care need continues at the time the organization discontinues operation of the EOP, the medical staff could either grant temporary privileges or consider granting full privileges. 

NOTE: All Credentialing and Privileging must be consistent with applicable law, regulation and medical staff requirements.

Additional Resources:
FAQ: Emergency Management - Requirements for Granting Privileges During a Disaster
FAQ: Credentialing and Privileging - Temporary Privileges
Manual: Nursing Care Center
Chapter: Emergency Management EM
Last reviewed by Standards Interpretation: May 11, 2023 Represents the most recent date that the FAQ was reviewed (e.g. annual review).
First published date: March 24, 2020 This Standards FAQ was first published on this date.
This page was last updated on May 23, 2023 with update notes of: Review only, FAQ is current Types of changes and an explanation of change type: Editorial changes only: Format changes only. No changes to content. | Review only, FAQ is current: Periodic review completed, no changes to content. | Reflects new or updated requirements: Changes represent new or revised requirements.
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