A nonprofit group devoted to well being coverage considers Massachusetts one of many states extra ready for well being emergencies just like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Belief for America’s Well being launched its annual report, “Prepared or Not: Defending the Public’s Well being From Ailments, Disasters and Bioterrorism,” on Thursday. The Bay State was included with 16 different states and the District of Columbia on the high stage of preparedness this yr.
“We did discover that Massachusetts was in our excessive tier this yr, the place we take a look at 10 indicators of how states are doing to arrange for a spread of public well being emergencies, not simply disasters,” Dara Lieberman, director of presidency relations at Belief for America’s Well being, informed NBC10 Boston.
Connecticut and Vermont are additionally within the excessive tier. Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island are amongst 20 states within the center tier, as is New York.
Lieberman mentioned the report’s objective is “to present states actions that they’ll take to higher put together for any form of emergency.”
She famous that investing in public well being is the group’s high suggestion to lawmakers.
“We discovered that Massachusetts elevated its public well being funding ranges for the previous three years, which is sweet — that they had a slight improve final yr — however there definitely must be extra,” she mentioned. “We have had many years of underfunding of public well being, each on the state and the nationwide stage.”
Lieberman additionally mentioned Massachusetts may do extra to stop workers shortages from impacting well being care.
“One space the place we discovered Massachusetts may enhance is they do not belong to one thing referred to as the Nurse Licensure Compact, and that makes it simpler to herald nurses from out of state when there are workforce shortages in hospitals,” she mentioned.
See the complete report beneath: