The Washington state Department of Health says a five-year federal grant announced last month will help prepare Spokane’s Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital to better manage patients with Ebola and other severe, highly infectious diseases.

The state agency and Sacred Heart were among nine health departments and associated partner hospitals nationwide to be named special regional treatment centers for such patients by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Sacred Heart is the designated response center for federal Region X, which includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

HHS said in a June 12 press release that its Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response has awarded about $20 million through its Hospital Preparedness Program to enhance the regional treatment centers’ capabilities to care for such patients. That office will provide an additional $9 million to those recipients over the remaining four years to sustain their readiness, the release said.

“This approach recognizes that being ready to treat severe, highly infectious diseases, including Ebola, is vital to our nation’s security,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, HHS assistant secretary for prepared and response, in the release. “This added regional capability increases our domestic preparedness posture to protect the public’s health.”

Each awardee will receive about $3.25 million over the full five-year period. That funding is part of $339.5 million in emergency funding that Congress appropriated to enhance state and local public health and health care system preparedness following cases of Ebola in the United States stemming from the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the release said.

It said the selected facilities will be continuously ready and available to care for a patient with Ebola or other severe, highly infectious diseases, whether the patient is medically evacuated from overseas or is diagnosed within the U.S.

Among the eight other hospitals that will serve as regional treatment centers are Bellevue Hospital Center, in New York City; Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore; and Emory University Hospital, in Atlanta,. The other chosen centers are in Boston; Minneapolis; Galveston, Texas; Denver; and Omaha, Neb.

The regional facilities are part of a national network of 55 Ebola treatment centers, but will have enhanced treatment capabilities. They’ll be required to accept patients within eight hours of being notified, have the capacity to treat at least two Ebola patients at the same time, and have respiratory infectious disease isolation capacity or negative-pressure rooms for at least 10 patients. They also will be required to conduct quarterly training and exercises, receive an annual readiness assessment from the soon-to-be-established National Ebola Training and Education Center, be able to treat pediatric patients or partner with a neighboring facility to do so, and be able to handle highly contaminated infectious waste.

In its separate new release, the state health department said it will use the first-year grant totaling $2.4 million to help strengthen Sacred Heart’s treatment capability.

Under the grant and the agreement between Washington health officials and Sacred Heart, the medical center will work closely with emergency medical services and other regional medical facilities to be continuously ready to care for patients with highly infectious diseases, the agency said. It also said Sacred Heart will establish a designated 10-bed isolation unit with separate access to ensure safety for all patients and caregivers.

Enhanced readiness for highly infectious diseases under the grant will also improve capacity to respond to other public health and medical risks in the state and regionally, the agency said. It said it will work with Sacred Heart and the other states in Region X to develop plans and agreements for patient coordination and transfer.

Jeff Collins, chief medical officer of Spokane-based Providence Health Care, which operates Sacred Heart, said in the press release, “The increasing international mobility of the population is leading to more rapid spread of infectious diseases like Ebola and, more recently, MERS. Funding support from the Department of Health and Human Services is an important investment to ensure our region’s health care system is ready to safely and successfully identify, isolate and treat patients with infectious disease while protecting caregivers, other patients and the community at large.”

Sacred Heart was selected for the grant in part because it has well-established local, regional, and state partnerships in place, the state agency said, adding that it works in collaboration with a variety of agencies to routinely manage infectious diseases in the community.

It’s the largest hospital between Seattle and Minneapolis, with a full spectrum of advanced services and nationally renowned specialists onsite, the agency said.

The medical center participated in state Ebola readiness activities, including Ebola readiness surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health & Human Services.

The grant covers five years, starting with $2.4 million in year one to be followed by smaller grants in years two through five, totaling $3.25 million to $4.6 million, the Department of Health said.

The additional work on readiness for highly infectious diseases will support existing plans and systems in Washington state and the region. State health officials in Washington have been tracking the Ebola situation and have been monitoring travelers who’ve come from the affected regions in Africa.