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American Public Health Association
133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
APHA 2005
 
5111.0: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 1:30 PM

Abstract #113184

Necessity is the mother of invention: A local public health department’s experience in developing operational guidance for hospital-health department integration using collaborative training forums

Christa-Marie Singleton, MD MPH, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Baltimore City Health Department, 210 Guilford Avenue, Third Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202, 443-992-8363, christa.singleton@baltimorecity.gov, Ruth A. Vogel, RN, CPH, Exercise and Training Branch, Operations Directorate, Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Camp Fretterd Military Reservation, 5401 Rue Saint Lo Drive, Reisterstown, MD 21136, and Peter L. Beilenson, MD, MPH, Baltimore City Department of Health, 210 Guilford Ave., 3rd Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202.

Recognizing that operational-focused emergency planning guidance for various components of the healthcare system is in varying stages of development, the Baltimore City Health Department created a unique series of hospital based forums, trainings, and exercises over the past two years to integrate planning and preparedness efforts for the twelve Baltimore Metropolitan hospitals, including two world-renowned institutions, The forums and trainings, built first at the local jurisdictional level, then expanding regionally and then state-wide, were designed to improve cross-jurisdictional and multi-agency understanding of activities and responsibilities of public health in the emergency response community. In 2004, the initiative was enhanced to provide hospitals with operational-based guidance to implement their internal decision-making processes for Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) activation, and to help prepare them for participation in a full-scale regional bioterrorism exercise. A key element of this adaptation was the integration of the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP)' Exercise and Training Building Block Approach to the instructional and evaluation process. By translating and adapting federal frameworks designed for state and local public health to local-based hospital operations, local public health leadership was able to demonstrate methods to operationally integrate the private acute care community and academic hospital entities into the building blocks for SNS needs assessment, receipt, management and allocation. Evaluation results from each hospital forum, as well as the After Action Report from this full-scale exercise, has assisted the development of these hospital forums as effective models to develop hospital-public health interagency health centered programs and services.

Learning Objectives:

Keywords: Health Departments, Hospitals

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

Strategic Partnerships and Team-Building

The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA