Recruiting Leaders Statewide for the SERV-OR Advanced Team

In 2022, the SERV-OR’s State Managed Volunteer Pool (SMVP) launched the first ever pilot of the Advanced Team (A-Team). This group spearheaded the pilot in pursuit of developing volunteer leadership units across the state. Our pilot launched in Southwest Oregon counties, also known as Regions 3 and 5 of Oregon’s Hospital Preparedness Regions. The purpose of the SERV-OR Advanced Team is to de-centralize volunteer coordination of SMVP deployments by developing local leader-type volunteers, using Incident Command System (ICS) principals, who can provide on-the-ground leadership, volunteer coordination, mission wrap-around support, situational awareness, and to generally improve Oregon Health Authority’s (OHA) ability to serve community and deployed personnel. The vision for the A-Team is to be a network of well-coordinated, regionally appointed cadres of trained volunteer leaders who can sustain the program’s growth, integrating into the OHA’s local and regional response structure, and providing direct leadership to deployed medical volunteers during emergency response. The leadership units are designed to improve OHA’s span of control and situational awareness during emergencies as well as bolster and maintain member engagement outside of emergency response. 

Desire to get involved with your area’s Advanced Team? Fill out the Advanced Team Interest Form today!

After a careful and cautious roll out of the Advanced Team in SW Oregon, in October 2024 we launched our statewide recruitment effort! Since then the A-Team has grown to include volunteers from Regions 1, 2, and 9. Still in Phase 2 of our pilot, we are eager to engage more SMVP volunteers to develop regional A-Team Units in each of the hospital preparedness regions across Oregon. This is a wonderful opportunity for healthcare professionals to get involved in their community, engage with other public health, healthcare, and preparedness professionals in your area and throughout the state. We hope to dedicate time and resources to train A-Team participants to develop or enhance leadership skills, build partnerships with local response organizations, and to rapidly activate for state and local emergencies. If you are a healthcare professional interested in getting more involved with this emerging team, LET US KNOW!  Complete this short form to receive an invitation to an upcoming information session SERV-OR Advanced Team Interest Form!