Attachment E - Interview Invitation

Subject: Interview Invitation: HSC Study on Community Preparedness and Surge Capacity

Dear «Prefix» «Last_Name»:

The Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) would like to invite you to participate in a study on community surge capacity and preparedness related to pandemic illness and other emergencies. HSC, a non-partisan policy research organization in Washington D. C., is conducting this research in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Our research aims to better understand emergency preparedness activities on a local level. This study will involve qualitative interviews with health care leaders in ten US cities, with the goal of understanding how community stakeholders collaborate and prepare for public health emergencies such as the recent H1N1 flu pandemic. We also seek to learn from the challenges stakeholders faced and the strategies they developed, in order to support effective community preparedness activities in the future.

We would like to arrange a 60-minute phone interview with you to obtain your perspective on community preparedness activities in «Site Name». If you do not believe that you are the most appropriate person to discuss these issues, we would greatly appreciate your referral to a colleague at your organization who is active in this area.

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. HSC has a strict policy to ensure the privacy of individual interview responses and does not disclose the names of interview respondents with anyone outside of our research team, unless required to do so by law. Additionally, we do not attribute comments to specific individuals in our final reports, which will be shared with respondents and made available at HSC’s website. For more information about HSC, please visit www.hschange.org.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or to schedule a time for a phone interview. We look forward to speaking with you soon.

Sincerely,

«Scheduler Name»