Managing Toronto citywide health crises through 2-1-1 services.

Information and referral systems such as 2-1-1 can be key partners in responding to community-wide health crises and other emergency and disaster events. This paper describes the experience of Toronto 2-1-1 dealing with the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic and later that year the Great Northeastern Blackout. It shares five lessons learned from these experiences and describes how they have shaped the current approach to emergency and disaster response at Toronto 2-1-1 (now 2-1-1 Central Region Ontario).