The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is a federally funded program to stockpile, manage, and distribute medicines, vaccines, and supplies in case of an emergency or significant public health incident. The SNS is managed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to supplement and resupply state and local inventories of medicines and supplies upon request.
When a decision to deploy the stockpile is made, the SNS works with state and local authorities to deliver required quantities of essential medical supplies to receive, stage, and store (RSS) sites. State and local authorities are responsible for managing receipt of the items at the RSS sites and coordinating distribution through point of dispensing (POD) sites.
SNS in Supply
Together, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS determines what medicines and supplies are included in the SNS. Individual items and prepackaged groups of items known as kits are categorized to create standards and a common language about supplies.
EMSupply uses the standard SNS list of items to categorize and manage assets and supplies. All inventory that is viewed, added, requested, or otherwise managed in EMSupply originates from the SNS list of inventory.