OEP Newsletter: September 30, 2002

September 30, 2002

In this issue:

Update From Robert Einweck, Director, Office of Emergency Preparedness

I want to thank everyone who took time from their schedules to attend the Minnesota Department of Health’s Community Health Conference on September 11—13. Over 450 people attended the conference at Breezy Point Resort, making it the largest attendance ever for a Community Health Conference. The number of attendees exceeded our plan, and we debated turning away people, but given the timeliness of the subject, we tried to accommodate all those who wanted to attend.

I hope you found the sessions provocative and stimulating, providing you with tools and ideas as we begin to strengthen our public health preparedness infrastructure together. The Minnesota Department of Health also learned a great deal from this conference. The Department received feedback from several attendees regarding priority areas for public health emergency preparedness. The Department appreciates your input and takes your comments and concerns seriously. Thank you for all the excellent feedback and please provide more to us in the future.

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Julie Ring Discusses Grantee Duties and Requirements

Community Health Boards must submit their first quarter reports to the MDH by October 15. The report instructions and forms were mailed to all CHS Administrators on September 26. This information is also available on the Community Health Division website.

The first quarter report is a simple narrative and expenditure report. The MDH is collecting this information to use in preparing the first quarter report that is due to the CDC on November 1. A State CHS Advisory Committee work group will develop the content of future reports.

Buddy Ferguson Provides a Risk Communication Update

The Minnesota Department of Health received positive comments about Dr. Peter Sandman’s risk communication presentation on Sept. 12, at the Community Health Conference. Training in risk communication will be a necessary, ongoing part of Minnesota’s emergency preparedness activities, and MDH will be exploring a number of ways to make continuing education and refresher training available statewide. A detailed summary of Dr. Sandman’s presentation is in the process of being prepared, and we hope to post it on the OEP website once we clear any potential copyright issues with Dr. Sandman. We eventually plan to have a variety of resources available, including links to other relevant sites, on the OEP Risk Communication page. Meanwhile, you may want to visit Dr. Sandman’s website at www.psandman.com, or Dr. Vincent Covello’s Center for Risk Communication site at www.centerforriskcommunication.org.

The MDH Communications Office has now begun the task, in collaboration with the Office of Emergency Preparedness, of reviewing the pre—scripted materials and messages we now have available on bioterrorism and emergency preparedness topics, and developing new materials and messages as we identify the need for them. We have already begun work on smallpox—related messages with a particular emphasis on messages relating to the pre—and post—event vaccination plans now being developed at both the state and federal level. Many of the issues surrounding smallpox vaccination are already “in play” with the media, following release of the federal post—event clinic guidelines on Sept. 23. The most troublesome questions, from a risk communication standpoint, involve (1) the widespread perception that it would be better to go ahead and make voluntary immunization available to everyone prior to any actual event; (2) the perception that proposed plans for selective pre—event immunization, as they’ve been discussed in the media, amount to preferential treatment for health care workers and public health personnel; and (3) concerns that some people will be forced to choose between vaccination and isolation following an actual event. MDH will be providing local public health agencies with talking points and other materials dealing with these issues as they become available.

Finally, following up on some of the issues that were raised during the “plague scenario” at the Community Health Conference, OEP and the MDH Communications Office will be proceeding with an examination of how issuance of HAN messages can be coordinated most effectively with both proactive and reactive media relations activities. The objective will be to provide local public health with appropriate advance notice of events and activities, while at the same time providing essential information and messages to the public in a timely manner and meeting the expectations of the media.

Myrlah Olson Updates Grant Activity Related To Assessment and 24/7 Alerts

While assessment is not a separate focus area for the Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism grant, assessment activities span all the focus areas and are a major component of the work we need to do in the next year. Because of the importance of this work and the need to coordinate assessment activities, we are forming a Core Assessment Team of local public health representatives. MDH is also developing electronic tools that should decrease the amount of time you spend completing surveys. In the meantime, it might be useful to know the following:

  • Don’t wait to begin work on the grant until after the assessment is done. We are directed by CDC to gather data about public health infrastructure and systems. There will also be training needs assessment led by Dee Finley in cooperation with the University of Minnesota. This work will take the entire year to complete.

  • We are developing a template and consistent process for online data collection. The contact information form is the first use of this template.

  • Expect soon a request to complete an assessment tool about your agency’s mass clinic plans.

One of the first goals of the Core Assessment Team will be to develop a timeline of assessment activities. We will share that with you as soon as we have it.

24/7 Alert Updates

Critical Benchmark #12 of the Public Health Preparedness and Bioterrorism Response Grant asks that we prepare a timeline for the development of a communications system that provides a 24/7 flow of critical health information among hospital emergency departments, state and local health officials, and law enforcement.

This is a complex undertaking. It requires that within three levels of public health (CDC, MDH, LPH), 24/7 technology and systems be in place that could alert staff to a public health emergency and permit timely response. For instance, if you are responding to an emergency after hours and the computers go down in your office, are you able to contact IT staff to resolve the problem? In addition to technology and systems within our own organizations, we must also be able to alert each other to a threat and communicate with hospital emergency departments and law enforcement after regular business hours. And although not specified in the grant, we would add Tribal Health Directors to that list also.

The need for such a system falls into the “low probability, high consequences” arena. Although it will be rare event that we issue a 24/7 alert, the consequences of not having the capacity to do so would be very serious. Obviously, it will take some time to work these issues out. The HAN Advisory Group will be making recommendations, and we welcome other input.

But we feel the need to have some sort of system 24/7 alert in place now. To establish an interim system, you actually have three options:

  • Option 1: If you have good cellular phone service coverage, you can forward all healthalert emails that are sent to your office email to a wireless email device (Blackberry and Motorola are two brands). Have someone from your agency carry it always and keep it by the bed at night. This is the direction we would like to move toward. If you have reliable service coverage, we recommend this approach now.

  • Option 2: If you are a hospital based agency that has a nursing station staffed all 3 shifts or if you have a 24/7 nurse line for home care or hospice patients, you may give us that phone number for 24/7 alerts. Of course, you will need to make sure the person who answers that phone number can alert public health staff. The 24/7 phone calls will be made by an auto-call system so if your nurse line or other 24/7 line goes through an answering service or voice mail system, it may not work.

  • Option 3: Provide home phone numbers and/or cell phone numbers that are monitored after business hours of three individuals from your agency. The auto-call system will keep dialing until it reaches someone.

Within the next week, CHS Administrators and Public Health Nursing Directors will be receiving a notice about an online contact identification form. Identifying your 24/7 alert choice and supplying us with the numbers is a part of this form. Even if you plan on moving to wireless email quickly, until it’s operational, please give us another option for reaching you after business hours. We will begin testing our 24/7 alert capacity soon. (Don’t worry. We won’t be calling at 2:00 a.m.) We’ll continue testing frequently until we reach close to 100% response within 1 hour.

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Brent Mather Provides A Smallpox Planning Update

The Center's for Disease Control released their Smallpox Vaccination Clinic Guide on Monday, September 23. This document is intended to provide planning guidance for State and local public health departments in conducting smallpox vaccination mass clinics.

The Minnesota Department of Health is including the CDC guidance in the development of the State Smallpox Response Plan. The State response plan will include a mass vaccination clinic planning guide and a planning template that maybe be used by local public health departments in the development of local response plans. To assist in the development of the State plan, the Office of Emergency Preparedness will be asking local public health departments for information related to their mass clinic planning. For example, locations of proposed mass clinic sites, and available staff/voluntary resources for conducting mass clinics. OEP will provide background, and assistance in answering these questions.

The State Smallpox Response Plan is scheduled for release as a Draft For Discussion Document, on October 4, to the Smallpox Steering Team Committee. The Steering Team consists of four representatives from local public health departments, MDH staff and selected State agencies. In addition, a draft of the smallpox plan will be sent to an Internal Smallpox Review Committee, which consists of nine representatives from local public health departments. A finalized plan will be released to all local public health departments late Fall 2002.

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Laurel Briske Provides An Update About The MDH District Offices

The Office of Public Health Practice in the MDH Community Health Division is hiring community planners and public health nurse consultants to provide technical support and consultation to local public health agencies on their emergency preparedness and bioterrorism activities. The new staff will be located in the MDH District Offices.

Northwest District - Bemidji
* Ralph Morris, MD, Community Planner Principal
Dr. Morris started in the Bemidji office on September 9. He has over 27 years of experience as a public health physician. Dr. Morris, recently retired as the Executive Director of the Galveston (TX) County Health Department, Ralph has also worked for the Texas Department of Health, the US Public Health Service, and is a Colonel in the US Army Reserves.

Southwest District - Marshall
* Cathy Hockert, BS, BA, MPH candidate, Community Planner Principal
Cathy is working out of the Marshall office and began working on September 9. She previously worked as Director of Environmental Health for 9 years at the Countryside Public Health Department, a chemist at the USDA Agriculture Research Laboratory and most recently for the Benson Public Schools.

West Central District – Fergus Falls
* Karen Moser, BS, Community Planner Principal
Karen started in the Fergus Falls office on September 25. Karen’s education and background are in community health education. She has worked for the Minnesota Department of Health in the Tobacco program as a grant manager, at Stevens Traverse Public Health as a health educator, and at Stevens Community Medical Center.

Northeast District - Duluth
* Bonnie Holz, BA, Community Planner Principal
Bonnie will start on October 8. She will be moving from St Peter to Duluth to serve the NE District. Bonnie has been the Director of Environmental Health for Brown, Nicollet, Cottonwood, and Watonwan Counties for 15 years. She has also worked as an environmental health specialist and public health educator.

Central District – St. Cloud
* Michelle “Mickey” Scullard, MPH, BA, Community Planner Principal
(Mickey’s email address will be activated on October 8).

On October 8, Mickey will start in the St Cloud office. Mickey is from Meeker County where she has been the health educator for nine years. She has worked in numerous community collaborative partnerships in the county and state. She also has education, and experience in international health.

South Central District - Mankato
* Mary Rippke, MS, Public Health Nurse Consultant
Mary has been the Director of Public Health Nursing at the Minnesota Department of Health for 10 years. She recently moved to the MDH Mankato District Office to provide leadership to the public health preparedness activities, and generalized nursing consultation to the counties in the South Central, and Southwest districts. Prior to coming to MDH, Mary was director of nursing in Olmsted, Faribault and Martin counties.

Southeast District – Rochester
A public health nurse consultant will be hired for this district. Interviews are scheduled for October 2.

Metro Twin Cities District Office
A community planner position for the Metro District Office will be hired. The position announcement has not yet been posted.

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Updated Monday, 22-Nov-2010 09:12:05 CST