The creation of healthcare partnerships within a region enhances the strength of a healthcare response during an emergency. Partnerships allow various healthcare entities, including health departments and fire/EMS, the opportunity to come together to share best practices during planning sessions, clearly identify response roles and share resources. Each healthcare agency strengthens their emergency response capability by ensuring that they have a team that understands their community response capabilities and partners who understand how they can assist. A good healthcare emergency response includes partnerships with all members of your community response team such as local emergency management agencies, law enforcement, department of public works, department of transportation and other subject matter experts that can clarify how they might assist in a healthcare emergency response.