Pre-Summit Workshops

These hands-on workshops provide for intensive exploration of timely topics in preparedness planning.

 

Advanced Practice Center Pre-Summit Training Conference

Date: Tuesday, February 19 and Wednesday, February 20

Time: 7:30 am - 4:15 pm (Tues.) 7:30 am - 2:00 pm (Wed.)

Description: NACCHO’s Advanced Practice Centers (APCs) invite you to attend a two-day training conference where the eight Advanced Practice Centers (APCs) in local health departments from CA, GA, MA, MD, MN, NY, TX and WA will share their expertise with you. This two-day training conference provides preparedness tools, training, and guidance to local health department staff to enhance their readiness to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. All participants will attend three in-depth training sessions (each 2.5 hours long) and two mini-sessions (see agenda below). Conference “take-aways” include a notebook with all the training materials presented and access to all the resources on the Internet. Each participant will also be mailed a CD-ROM and booklet containing the resources.

The APCs will conduct training sessions and share resources on topics you can immediately use. The sessions include:

  • Preparing Medical Reserve Corps for Points of Distribution (POD) Operations
  • Master the Disaster!: The next generation of emergency preparedness tabletop exercises for public health
  • Pandemic Flu & You: Public Health Cannot Do It Alone!
  • Equity in Emergency Response: Public Health Planning for Vulnerable Populations
  • Public Health in a Joint Information Center (JIC)
  • Building a Public Health Community of Practice: How to Take Biosurveillance to the Next Level and Reap its Broad Benefits
  • Disaster Strikes: Do You Have an Environmental Health Emergency Response Plan?
  • Strategies and Resources for Emergency Preparedness and Response in Rural USA

For a complete APC Training Conference schedule or to register, click here.

Click here to download APC Training Conference materials.

 

Ready RN: Making Every Nurse a Prepared Nurse

Date: Tuesday, February 19

Time: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Sponsor: Mosby/MC Strategies

Description: Nurses play a major role in responding to disaster events, in managing the victims—and more importantly—in ensuring the best possible outcomes. Nurses must be ready to act quickly and competently. ReadyRN: Making Every Nurse a Prepared Nurse is a multifaceted national initiative designed to help organizations prepare their nursing workforce with the knowledge needed to care for and protect themselves and patients during any type of disaster event or public health emergency. ReadyRN keeps nurses safe so they can keep patients safe.

ReadyRN is an innovative educational initiative conducted in partnership with Elsevier/MC Strategies and designed to prepare nurses in a systematic way with evidence-based content to respond to catastrophic disasters, mass casualty events, and public health emergencies. This presentation will include strategies for preparing an entire organizational workforce, and a selection of modules from the program. These include essentials of disaster preparedness, and the restoration of public health following natural disasters; biological, chemical and radiation emergencies; and emerging infectious disease such as pandemic influenza.

ReadyRN is consistent with the National Response Plan (Framework), the National Incident Management System, and the CDC competencies for emergency preparedness. This presentation provides evolving interactive scenarios for nurses to learn those components of patient care and event management that are unique to disaster situations. This includes disaster triage, scene management, use of personal protective equipment, decontamination, shelter management, and public health promotion and disease prevention strategies at the point-of-care.

ReadyRN was developed by Dr. Tener Goodwin Veenema, a nationally recognized expert in emergency nursing and disaster preparedness, and has been adopted by the National American Red Cross as their standard for preparing nurses and disaster health services volunteers across the country.

 

From Mission to Results: A Balanced Scorecard for the Prepared Health Department

Date: Tuesday, February 19

Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Sponsor: BearingPoint

Description: As health departments face increasing budget and program scrutiny, accountability and transparency are paramount. But how do you measure your capacity to respond to a public health emergency when nothing happens? How do you allocate preparedness resources to ensure they have the biggest health impact? What is the value of the time spent nurturing and maintaining partnerships, and how effective is it? How can you effectively communicate the progress of your programs and initiatives to staff, leadership, and policymakers to gain and maintain their support for community preparedness efforts?

Join BearingPoint in this interactive workshop that will introduce participants to the balanced scorecard, a strategic approach to managing, measuring, and communicating progress toward an organization’s mission and goals. Established as a basic management principle for the private sector in the early 1990s, the balanced scorecard has evolved into a best practice in the public sector. The balanced scorecard provides managers with the necessary information about their organizations to make informed decisions, while allowing each contributor to understand their impact on results. Learn how the balanced scorecard can help you improve and measure the effectiveness of your programs, as well as help you communicate results to stakeholders.

Visit BearingPoint at www.bearingpoint.com.

 

IRMS Technology for Coordinating Logistics and Supply Distribution During Public Health Emergencies and Other Disasters

Date: Tuesday, February 19

Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Sponsor: Integrated Warehousing Solutions

Description: Today more than ever public health and emergency management agencies face numerous challenges regarding federal compliance in the coordination and distribution of supplies and other materials during disasters and other public health emergencies. Learn why technology that was formerly only available to the best performing companies in the world is now becoming a force amongst numerous public health and governmental agencies.

Learning objectives for this workshop include to:

  • Understand the technology available to federal, state, and local governmental agencies to coordinate the distribution of supplies and other materials (e.g.,CDC/SNS Push Packs)
  • Identify the key elements that allowed Georgia to achieve regulatory compliance and emergency logistics execution through the use of the IRMS commercial grade system
  • Describe the variety of ways IRMS technology can enhance worker productivity and inventory control

 

Planning for Pandemic Influenza Mass Vaccination - Panel Discussion & Special Speaker

Date: Tuesday, February 19

Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Sponsor: BD

Description: Attend this engaging panel discussion and learn how your peers have addressed the challenge of planning for pandemic influenza mass vaccination. Hear panelists from several public health departments talk about:

  • How they prioritized planning activities
  • Planning around supplies and storage
  • How they obtained and allocated funding
  • Obstacles they encountered and how they addressed them
  • Next steps

Additionally, a special speaker will discuss how you can obtain funding for public health planning activities. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn how you can get the funding that you need.

Don't hesitate to ask questions or offer additional insights during the Q&A time at the end of the session. Plenty of time will be allotted to provide for maximum interaction between the speakers and audience.

 

Achieve Automated Disease Surveillance and Case Management Through a Centralized Data Network Empowering Your Partners in Public Health

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 9:00 am - 11:30 am

Sponsor: Atlas

Description: The Wisconsin Division of Public Health (DPH) has begun deployment of a statewide application of the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), called the Wisconsin Electronic Disease Surveillance System (WEDSS), in its efforts to achieve a high level of preparedness in all areas of public health, ranging from the day-to-day public health incident to the regional outbreak or bioterrorism attack. During this session representatives from Wisconsin will present the WEDSS application and share their experiences with investigating, procuring, and implementing a Web-based disease surveillance and case management application. They will also discuss working with the counties throughout Wisconsin in their joint effort to deploy an effective solution that follows the CDC Public Health Information Network (PHIN) guidelines. In addition, Atlas will conduct a live interactive demonstration of the disease surveillance system that serves as the backbone of the preparedness strategies for various states and counties that use the Atlas PHIN suite. Representatives from Atlas will be on hand to answer questions about the software and to share their extensive experience developing and deploying software for the public health field at both the state and local levels.

Download the Atlas presentations: Presentation 1   Presentation 2

 

Public-Private Partnerships: Strengthening Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (SOLD OUT!)

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 9:00 am - 11:45 am

Sponsor: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

Description: Continued efforts are needed to strengthen the nation’s preparedness infrastructure in order to meet the challenges of pandemic influenza. An October 2007 report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) noted that “more than 85% of the nation's critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector.” The GAO concludes that public-private partnerships are "vital" to ensure that essential services will continue during a pandemic or other national emergency.

This workshop will build on successes to date, and proposes to explore the challenges faced in building effective public-private partnerships, and to discuss the specific program components of selected models in place in the community. Expert panel presentations will be as follows:

The Basic Science and Epidemiology of Avian Flu
Gabrial Lott, PharmD (Facilitator)
Senior Regional Medical Scientist
GlaxoSmithKline

Buidling Public-Private Partnerships in Pan Flu Response Planning: The City of Milwaukee Model
Jeanette Kowalik, MPH
Immunization Program Coordinator
City of Milwaukee Health Department
Milwaukee, WI

Best Practice Examples of Effective Public-Private Pan Flu Response Partnerships
CAPT Lynn A. Slepski, RN, MSN, CCNS
Deputy Director, Office of Risk Managment and Analysis
National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Download the GSK presentations: Presentation 1   Presentation 2

 

Accomplishing Cross-Jurisdictional Emergency Preparedness: Case Studies of Creating Successful Multi-Disciplinary Teams

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 9:00 am - 11:45 am

Sponsor: Global Secure Systems

Description: During an influenza pandemic, the traditional emergency response roles of the public health, police, and fire departments will be reversed. Public Health departments will lead response efforts, while police and fire departments will play a secondary role. This change in roles requires that all parties rethink their emergency response strategies, and is one reason for the growing need for strong cross-jurisdictional multidisciplinary preparedness teams.

While some jurisdictions have been successful in building these teams, many jurisdictions struggle to overcome the challenges that arise in the process. In this workshop you will hear case studies presented by state and local public health emergency preparedness officers addressing the challenges they have encountered and the solutions they have identified while building successful teams. The workshop will include an informal panel discussion and interactive audience participation.

Throughout the workshop an infectious disease scenario will be used to emphasize selected points specific to multijurisdictional multidisciplinary collaboration. This scenario will be used toward the end of the workshop in a mini tabletop exercise involving the panel and the audience. The purpose of the exercise will be to reinforce the dialog and lessons learned during the workshop.

Workshop facilitators will be Steve Wood, former Chief of Public Health Emergency Preparedness for San Diego County, and Brian Maguire, DrPH, whose background includes: EHS Graduate Program Director of the University of Maryland, assistant professor at George Washington University, hospital administrator, and emergency services manager in NYC.

 

Living on the Edge: How Crisis Information Management Systems can Deliver Your Common Operating Picture

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 9:30 am - 11:30 am

Sponsor: Emergency Services Integrators (ESI)

Description: The benefit public health has gained from its widespread adoption of information technology is well documented. However many organizations still struggle with integrating critical information from responders in the field, legacy systems, neighboring jurisdictions, and other sources. Increasingly, agencies are beginning to incorporate crisis information management systems coupled with fusion center technology to amalgamate data to provide enhanced situational awareness. Using examples from Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom’s book The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations as well as scenario-based examples, techniques will be presented illustrating how information can be brought in from various sources to create a common operating picture.

 

Influenza Prevention Expert Panel: Exploring Strategies for Increasing Seasonal Vaccination to Promote Pandemic Preparedness

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Sponsor: Novartis Vaccines

Description: This panel discussion will offer a range of perspectives exploring how innovative steps taken at the local level to raise seasonal influenza vaccination rates can reduce the burden of disease while positioning a community to be better prepared when pandemic influenza strikes. Speakers will draw on their experiences to present case studies illustrating creative ideas for providing influenza vaccinations through alternative channels such as community sites, pharmacies, and employers. They also will offer practical insights for public health professionals on coordinating local activities to achieve influenza vaccination goals and to establish systems, relationships, and infrastructure for addressing the potential threat of pandemic influenza.

 

NEMA EMAC Training Session

Date: Wednesday, February 20

Time: 12:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Sponsor: NEMA

Description: As the cornerstone of national mutual aid, EMAC is a national Governor’s interstate mutual aid compact that facilitates the sharing of resources, personnel, and equipment across state lines during times of emergency or disaster.

As a critical component of the EMAC system, county and city health officials play an important role in emergency/disaster response and recovery efforts. This workshop will assist county and city health officials to better understand their roles under EMAC and how local health resources can be requested and utilized for emergencies and disasters.

The workshop will address:

  • The history of EMAC
  • EMAC organizational and governance structure
  • How EMAC works
  • The operational structure for EMAC
  • EMAC and the National Incident Management System (NIMS)
  • Responder mobilization and deployment requirements under EMAC
  • Reimbursement procedures
  • Participant involvement and responsibilities under EMAC

Click here to download the EMAC presentation.