United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps - Deployments

Deployments

The corps is often deployed as part of ESF-8 in the national emergency response plan, but can also be deployed on an individual basis for various needs to other federal agencies, states, local governments, or even to aid foreign governments. Like all other federal-level responses, officers are deployed only upon request, and upon the recommendation of the Surgeon General and permission of the Assistant Secretary for Health. During deployments, officers may report to regular office spaces, such as coordinating responses at state-of-the-art emergency operations centers, or into the field in extremely austere environments, such as when responding to a natural disaster. In addition, deployments may either be on an individual basis, such as when specific skill sets are needed, or as part of a team, when large-scale responses are needed.

The corps recently introduced a tiered system of response, with Tier 1 response teams ready and able to respond to an event within 12 hours, and Tier 2 teams ready and able to respond within 36 hours. Officers not on Tier 1 or 2 teams are Tier 3 responders, ready and able to respond to an event in 72 hours. Tier 1 teams are primarily made up of Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) teams that are made up of over 100 officers with multiple specialties, and are focused on providing acute clinical care of disaster-exacerbated chronic conditions. Officers who do not work as a clinical care provider on one of these teams are often in support roles, such as logistics, administration/finance, or planning. Tier 2 teams are composed of a smaller, more specialized workforce. Current Tier 2 teams include the Applied Public Health Team (APHT), the Mental Health Team (MHT), and the Services Access Team (SAT). Officers not already assigned to one of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams are Tier 3, and are used to augment these teams in the event of staffing shortages due to availability, or the need to scale up a response.

Some notable recent deployments involving the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps:

• 1989 - Hurricane Hugo, Loma Prieta, California earthquake.
• 1992 - More than 1000 PHS officers were deployed to South Dade County, Florida following Hurricane Andrew
• early 1990s - flooding throughout the United States and Alaska
• 1994 - Northridge, California earthquake
• 1995 - bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• 1995 - Hundreds of PHS officers were deployed to the U.S. Virgin Islands following Hurricane Marilyn
• 2001 - More than 1,000 PHS officers were deployed to New York City after the attacks on September 11, 2001 to aid victims and provide medical and mental health services to responders and rescue workers.
• 2004 - Hurricane Ivan
• 2005 - more than 2,000 PHS officers deployed to set up field hospitals and render aid and assistance to evacuees and responders in the wakes of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and Hurricane Wilma
• 2008 - PHS-2 Rapid Deployment Force deployed pre-landfall to Louisiana in advance of Hurricane Gustav. It became the first standing PHS team to set up and run a Federal Medical Station. The team and 200 patients rode out the hurricane in Alexandria's Riverfront Center. RDF-1 and RDF-3 deployed pre-landfall in advance of Hurricane Ike to set up Federal Medical Stations in College Station, TX and Baton Rouge, LA respectively.
• 2010 - Haiti earthquake; oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

In addition to disaster response, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps has been partnering with the United States Navy on their health diplomacy missions. Corps officers have been part of the Navy's Pacific Partnership (in the Pacific basin) and Continuing Promise (in the Caribbean/west Atlantic) since 2007. Such missions are often carried out on either the USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) or USNS Comfort (T-AH-20), though other ships, such as the USS Bataan (LHD-5) have also been used. The command staff of the corps are deployed for the entire mission duration (often three months), while operational personnel serve one month aboard, meeting and departing the ships at the ports of call during the mission.

The corps, as a uniformed service, may also be militarized and considered a branch of the armed forces by an act of Congress, or by executive order by the President of the United States, not only in time of war, but also in “an emergency involving the national defense proclaimed by the President." One such major militarization of the corps occurred during World War II, in which the corps was militarized for WWII and the Korean War.