Awareness-Level

Training for

Preparedness

Green River District Health Department

Public Health Emergency Preparedness Team

Objectives

At the end of this course, participants will:

Understand the health department’s role in

public health emergency preparedness

Understand their own personal role in public

health emergency preparedness

Understand the usage of the Green River District

Health Department’s preparedness plans and how

they fit together

Know where to find the preparedness plans on

the GRDHD network

What is Public Health

Preparedness?

“The capability of the public health and health care

systems, communities, and individuals, to prevent,

protect against, quickly respond to, and recover

from health emergencies, particularly those whose

scale, timing, or unpredictability threatens to

overwhelms routine capabilities.”

Who is Involved?

Preparedness involves entire communities, not just

a single public health agency alone.

Public health agencies have a responsibility to

engage community partners and citizens in

preparedness efforts.

All-Hazards Approach

The nature of events cannot always be predicted

The All-Hazards Approach can be applied for

natural, man-made, or disease outbreaks.

Natural-floods, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes,

winter storms

Man-made-terrorist events, chemical spills

Disease outbreaks-pandemic flu, epidemiological

investigations

Specific annexes are included to provide more in-

depth detail to supplement the plan

Disaster Phases

Mitigation-prevention. Long term process to reduce severity.

Preparedness-cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, evaluation.

Response-begins when events occur.

Recovery-focused on returning area to pre-disaster state.

Where does preparedness fit?

Builds on existing infrastructure and services

Preparedness training exercises provide opportunities to identify strengths and ways to improve

Requires dedicated staff time

Requires collaboration with outside partners

Emergency Management

Green River Area Development District (GRADD)

Medical Reserve Corps (MRC)

Red Cross

Hospital Preparedness Partnership (HPP)

Etc.

What’s Your Role in an Emergency?

Administrative Staff

Keeps records for FEMA reimbursement

Documentation/purchasing

Registration with clinics

Acting within Incident Command System

Managing volunteers

Coordinating technical communication systems

Roles, Continued

Sanitarians

Shelter inspection

Insect/rodent control

Environmental sampling

Directing traffic near mass clinics

Acting within the Incident Command System

Nurses

Vaccination clinics

Acting within the Incident Command System

Provider education

Epidemiologic investigation

Monitoring responder health and safety

Roles, Continued

Roles, Continued

Public Information Officers

Acting within Incident Command System

Providing information to public/agency

spokesperson

Linking to health care provider community

Roles, Continued

Health Educators

Acting within the Incident Command System

Communicating with other agencies

Developing public information materials

Who has a role?

Public Health Director

Preparedness Coordinator

Health Educators

Public Information Officer

Epidemiologists

Information technology staff

Medical Reserve Corps (volunteer) coordinator

Environmental health staff

Nurses

Finance Department

Human Resources

...everyone has a role!

Potential Partners

Emergency Management agencies

Hospitals/Healthcare providers

Fire departments

Emergency Medical Services

Police

Schools

Red Cross

Businesses

Media

GRDHD Preparedness Plans

The base of all the plans is the “All-Hazards Emergency Operations Plan/Continuity of Operations Plan” or “EOP/COOP”

This plan is a basic overview of the steps the

agency would need to take in the case of an

emergency

Includes essential functions, staff roles, call-

down lists, delegation of authority, levels of

activation, and much more

EOP/COOP contents

Possible back-up locations for each building

Essential services that need to be continued during the emergency

Health Alert Network (HAN) information-

How to send an alert

24/7 Notification Algorithm

How the department can be reached 24/7

Emergency Phone List

Phone numbers for emergency preparedness staff and management

Job Action Sheets

The responsibilities of each emergency role

Activation levels

How bad is the emergency? Which emergency functions need to be activated?

Risk Analysis

What events are most likely to occur?

Maps, evacuation routes, directions to other GRDHD facilities

Communications

Where are communication devices such as satellite phones, fax machines, radios, internet, computers, walkie talkies, etc. Each facilities assets are described.

EOP/COOP contents

Where is the EOP/COOP plan?

The Plan is located on the official documents drive

in the “Public Health Preparedness Plans and After

Action Reports” folder, along with incident-specific

plans.

After this training, please take some time to

familiarize yourself with this plan.

GRDHD Incident Specific

Support Plans

There are also plans under the “umbrella” of the

EOP/COOP that describe actions to be taken in

specific events that require more specialized action

Pandemic Flu Plan

Guide for response before, during, and after a

pandemic situation

Methods outlined in plan can also be applied to

large-scale outbreaks of other highly infectious

respiratory diseases, such as Severe Acute

Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Strategic National Stockpile

Plan

The Strategic National Stockpile is a reservoir of

essential life-saving medications and equipment

that may be used to vaccinate or medicate the

entire population in the case of a pandemic or

bioterrorism event.

This plan outlines the procedures that will be

taken to dispense these resources to the public in

the event it is needed.

Points of Dispensing (POD)

Book Plans

A “Point of Dispensing” is a place where the

Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) materiel will be

dispensed to the public

Materiels include medications and medical

supplies

8 POD books-one for each location in our region

(Region 3)

Contains all the information needed for setting up,

running, and deactivating a “point of dispensing”

site

Medical Needs Shelter

Support Plan

This plan establishes methods, procedures, activation, operation, and deactivation guidelines for Medical Needs Shelters

Medical Needs Shelters are opened when there are medical needs that arise in traditional shelters that can not be adequately taken care of, such as:

physical, emotional/cognitive, and or medical

conditions

GRDHD Support Manuals and

Guidelines

There are documents that support or supplement

the aforementioned plans. These supporting

documents can also be found on the GRDHD

common drive in the “Preparedness Plans and After

Action Reports” folder

The following slides will give a brief description of

these support manuals

Foodborne and Waterborne

Outbreak Investigation Manual

Provides the definition of an outbreak

Roles and responsibilities of involved jobs

Detailed description of the steps in various types of

outbreaks

GRDHD Risk Communications

Toolkit

This document provides the Public Information

Officer, or “PIO”, with guidance for communicating

with media and society during activation of the

EOP/COOP

Laboratory Packing and

Shipping Manual

In certain outbreak situations, GRDHD staff may be

required to send specimens to out-of-town

laboratories for testing

This manual provides guidance for packing and

mailing various substances

Reportable Disease Desk

Reference

Reportable diseases are diseases that must be reported to the state department within a certain time frame after detection.

This manual serves as a comprehensive resource document to assist the health department and other health care providers in clarifying their responsibilities for disease reporting, epidemiologic surveillance, and outbreak investigations.

Emergency Supplies Brief

This documents the resources directly accountable

to GRDHD and housed on GRDHD premises and at

off-site facilities within the district.

Provides a specific description of the materials

located in each of the storage areas.

Partner Agency Plans

Another section of plans located in the

“Preparedness Plans and After Action Reports” folder

is titled “Partner Agency Plans”

This folder houses partner plans that may be of

supplemental or supportive use during an

emergency.

To access these plans, go to the “official documents”

drive, click on “Public Health Preparedness Plans

and After Action Reports”, and then “Partner Agency

Plans”

Review

The Green River District Health Department has plans in place to guide staff in an emergency situation.

The preparedness team is responsible for updating and maintaining these plans.

Everyone has access to these plans, which are located on the official documents drive.

All staff should be aware of these plans and how they may be used in an event.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the preparedness team.