From Emergency Response to Continuity of Care: How States Can Digitally Protect Seniors, People with Disabilities and In-Home Patients During Disasters

In a disaster, evacuation is only the beginning. For seniors, people with disabilities and individuals receiving in-home support, safety depends on much more than getting out of immediate danger. It depends on whether the state can preserve the information, services and human connections that make ongoing care possible once disruption begins.

That is where many emergency operations still break down. Agencies may know a facility is at risk, but not which residents need specialized transportation, who depends on medication or equipment, which in-home patients require more than a wellness check, or where displaced residents can be safely rehomed without interrupting care. When this information lives in paper binders, spreadsheets or the memory of a few experienced staff members, continuity becomes fragile at exactly the moment it matters most.

State leaders in aging, disability and human services need a more modern model—one that treats continuity of care as a core emergency-management outcome, not a secondary concern after evacuation. Publicis Sapient’s work with Oregon offers a strong proof point for what that can look like in practice.

Why continuity of care is the real test of readiness

Disasters create a cascading set of risks for vulnerable populations. A resident may be moved quickly but arrive without complete records. An in-home patient may be reached, but not assessed accurately for what comes next. A caregiver may lose visibility into where a loved one has been taken. A facility may need to relocate residents urgently while preserving care regimens that cannot be improvised.

These are not edge cases. They are central operational challenges for agencies responsible for vulnerable populations at scale. In Oregon, the Aging & People with Disabilities program was responsible for 47,000 nursing home residents across 2,100 licensed facilities, in addition to 20,000 in-home patients. Before modernization, statewide emergency coordination relied heavily on paper maps, binders full of spreadsheets and manual cross-referencing. The risks were significant: slow response, single points of failure and the possibility of life-altering mistakes.

For agencies in similar positions, the lesson is clear: continuity of care cannot depend on analog tools in a digital-age emergency.

What a modern emergency platform should make possible

A modern emergency response platform should do more than digitize incident logging. It should give responders and authorized agency teams a living operational picture of vulnerable populations before, during and after disruption. That means bringing fragmented information into one secure environment, turning static spreadsheets into usable maps, and supporting the workflows required to move people safely without losing the context of their care.

At a practical level, leaders should look for capabilities in four areas.

1. Identify who needs more than a wellness check

Not every at-risk resident needs the same response. Some people can evacuate with minimal support. Others may require transportation assistance, communication accommodations or urgent follow-up because they depend on ongoing in-home services. Oregon’s digital emergency response system helped responders know ahead of time which at-home care patients needed more than just a knock on the door. That kind of foresight changes the quality of response. It helps teams prioritize the most at-risk residents first instead of treating every contact as operationally identical.

2. Preserve critical resident and caregiver information

In an emergency, information fragmentation becomes dangerous. Agencies need resident details, facility data and operational resources in one place so authorized teams can act quickly and confidently. A unified platform reduces the risk of outdated or lost records while making institutional knowledge accessible beyond a single individual or office. That matters not just for speed, but for resilience. When knowledge is embedded in the platform rather than trapped in manual processes, operations become more dependable under pressure and more sustainable over time.

3. Track displacement and support safe rehoming

Once residents are displaced, the challenge shifts from evacuation to continuity. Agencies need to know where people have gone, whether placements are appropriate, and how to ensure the care regimens they depend on are not compromised. In Oregon, displaced citizens could be accurately tracked and safely rehomed through a single Emergency Response Management solution. That capability is essential for reducing confusion, supporting families and caregivers, and maintaining accountability throughout the response.

4. Reduce breaks in medication, support services and communication

The most serious failures often happen after the move: medication schedules are interrupted, support services lapse, communications become inconsistent and staff lose visibility into the next step. Digital workflows help agencies manage these transitions more effectively by keeping incidents tracked and triaged in one place, improving coordination across teams and allowing leaders to respond with a clearer understanding of emerging needs. The result is not just a faster operation. It is a safer one.

Oregon’s example: from manual coordination to digital continuity

Oregon’s transformation demonstrates what happens when a state modernizes around both response and care continuity. Publicis Sapient helped consolidate disparate processes into a single platform, digitize manual workflows, convert spreadsheets into maps and build a system capable of supporting the complex workflows required to assist residents urgently and accurately.

The impact was substantial. The platform now supports emergency response for 67,000 patients across 2,100 facilities, with all incidents tracked and triaged digitally. Responders gained a clearer view of which residents required additional assistance and which in-home patients needed more than a basic check-in. Displaced citizens could be tracked and safely rehomed in ways that helped preserve the care regimens they relied on.

Just as importantly, the state reduced dependence on a single long-time staff member whose manual coordination had once been central to operations. By digitizing knowledge and workflows, Oregon improved operational resilience while creating a more future-ready model for protecting vulnerable populations.

A practical blueprint for aging, disability and human services leaders

For leaders looking to modernize, the path forward does not start with technology alone. It starts with a shift in operating model: from emergency response as event management to emergency response as continuity management.

That shift typically includes several priorities:
When these capabilities come together, agencies can move from reactive coordination to a more humane, data-driven model of service continuity. They can make faster decisions, allocate support more intelligently and protect vulnerable residents not just during evacuation, but throughout displacement and recovery.

Protecting people, not just moving them

The future of emergency management for aging, disability and human services programs will be shaped by one question: when disruption begins, can the state protect the continuity of care people depend on every day?

Oregon’s experience shows that the answer can be yes. With the right digital foundation, agencies can identify higher-need individuals sooner, preserve critical resident and caregiver information, track displacement with greater confidence and reduce dangerous breaks in medication, support services and communication.

That is the opportunity for public-sector leaders now. Not simply to digitize evacuation, but to modernize around continuity itself—so that when disaster strikes, the people most at risk are not only found quickly, but cared for continuously.