Providing Surge Capacity to the Public Health Nursing Workforce Through Emergency Preparedness Training

Beginning in late October and into early November 2010 Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) detected a sharp incline in the number of reported cases of pertussis within the Jefferson County community. In this short time span of approximately two months, 250 cases required investigation by JCPH public health nursing staff.

As this case load was outside the capacity of the current communicable disease staff, the JCPH Emergency Preparedness team was contacted for assistance. At the request of the public health nurses, a partial activation of the JCPH Incident Response Team was initiated to allow for surge capacity for case investigations. This multi-disciplinary internal response team was initially created to respond to major public health emergencies (bioterrorism, pandemic influenza). However, the team was also trained over the course of a year on the daily internal responsibilities of the communicable disease control program: outbreak investigation, response to food borne illness emergencies, and the roles that each program has within the department. Public health emergency response planning created an environment for success and provided the public health nursing staff with surge capacity for case investigation. This model of training allowed for appropriate response times, timely initiation of prevention measures, and prevented burn-out in the nursing staff. Integrating emergency preparedness into the daily activities of a local public health department, while not changing the culture of public health, can lead to an environment where diverse staff from different programs can be activated to provide surge capacity for an already taxed public health nursing workforce.