Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Readiness – ESAR-VHP Program

ESAR-VHP is a national network of state-based systems, which verifies the identity and credentials of health professionals so that they can more readily volunteer for disaster and public health and medical emergencies.

Across a seven year period, QRS assisted state preparedness programs to certify their senior-most health care practitioners. To do this, states needed board certification of the practitioners for verification. QRS negotiated with the only sources authorized to attest to physician certifications, namely, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) for MD physicians and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) for DO physicians. Additionally, QRS came to terms the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), and the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP). QRS was authorized by ASPR to come to terms with ABMS, AOA, FSMB and ASCP so as to make the verification data available to the state programs. Specifically, FSMB makes information available to state programs on change in status and adverse actions taken against physicians (and PAs). 

Additionally, the prescription-writing privileges of all authorized professionals were also required by state programs. To this end, QRS contacted the DOJ/Drug Enforcement Administration and became authorized to download the agency’s drug registration data base. Throughout the contracts, QRS downloaded DEA data biweekly, extracted the relevant information, and made the data available to state programs via a secure website (developed and maintained by QRS).