Local Public Health Training Institute



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Advisory Council Meeting Minutes

January 9, 2006

Meeting participants:

Kathy Atkinson, MDPH

Rebecca Cadigan, Harvard School of Public Health

Sally Cheney, MDPH

Gerard Cody, MEHA

Brad Cohen, DelValle Institute

Sandy Collins, MAPHN

Suzanne Condon, MDPH

Priscilla Fox, MDPH (guest)

John Felix, DEP

Kathleen Gilmore, MDPH

Allison Hackbarth, MDPH

Paul Halfmann, MDPH

Peg Harrington, MDPH (by teleconference)

Betsy Land, MDPH (guest)

Stephen Lemire, MHOA

Kathleen MacVarish, BU School of Public Health

Sharon Mastenbrook, MHOA

Donna Moultrup, MHOA

Priscilla Neves, MDPH

Amy Rosenstein, PSI

Frank Singleton, MPHA

Charlotte Stepanian, MAPHN

Jeff Timperi, MDPH (guest, by teleconference)

Meeting starting time: 12:05 p.m.

Welcome

Sandy Collins will now serve as Advisory Council Chair and Stephen Lemire will serve as Advisory Council Vice Chair.

Institute Update

Amy Rosenstein provided an update on the status of several Local Public Health Institute projects. The Institute/MDPH trainings have run ten sessions of the training program “Personal Protective Equipment for Infection Control in the Community”. Approximately 250 people have completed the training and it has received positive evaluations. Training materials will be sent to communities that did not have a representative at one of the sessions.

The Institute and MDPH are currently planning a new training on Flu Pandemic Planning. Ten trainings will be conducted in March at locations in all of the regions across the state. The Institute will begin publicizing the training shortly.

“The Foundations for Local Public Health” classroom-based training will be held during the weeks of March 27, April 3 and April 10 at Wellesley Gateway. A minimum of twenty participants must be enrolled in order to run it, due to the resource intensity of holding the course in a classroom setting. One person raised concern regarding the time required to be in the course. The Institute will conduct a thorough evaluation of the course offering, including barriers to participation, to help inform the most effective approach to offer the course in the future. The course will be promoted through the Institute website, through MDPH’s list serves and website, and the local public health associations’ list serves. In addition, the professional associations will identify new local public health personnel who might be interested in enrolling in the course, and the Institute will follow-up to invite them.

The Institute’s website is now available at . Advisory Council members were asked to review it and provide feedback on content to Amy by January 16.

III. Disaster Preparedness for Special Populations

Jeff Timperi from MDPH’s Center for Emergency Preparedness gave a brief overview of a new project, which is focused on giving local public health specific direction on how to include and provide for special populations in their local Comprehensive Emergency Management Plans. To guide this effort, approximately 25 special population subject matter experts will be interviewed. Jeff asked Institute Advisory Council members to review a draft list of questions for these interviews and to provide feedback to him by January 20.

IV. Training Needs Related to Legal Issues

Priscilla Fox from MDPH provided an overview of possible future trainings topics related to legal issues, and solicited feedback on how they could be developed working with the Institute. The first training discussed, “Legal Nuts and Bolts of Isolation and Quarantine”, was offered in all of the regions two years ago and has been of high interest since that time. In the evaluations from the November 21 conference, it was identified as a training that local public health would like to see offered again. Priscilla noted some changes to the materials are needed. One Council member noted that MDPH has received questions on how to quarantine an area in a pandemic. Related legal issues could potentially be incorporated into the “Legal Nuts and Bolts” curriculum. There are also clinical issues related to quarantine that should be considered. This training could also be targeted to include attorneys, and the Massachusetts Municipal Association could be an effective way to reach this group.

There was discussion around the importance of educating police and fire departments on the use of PPE in dealing with infectious disease. Within these groups, there are concerns and some misinformation about airborne disease, and it is important to help clarify the risks. One suggestion was that laminated cards could be developed, describing the types of PPE that are needed in different settings.

Priscilla requested input on whether “Legal Nuts and Bolts” should be offered regularly, and several members of the Council said that they thought that it should. This led into a discussion of the need to identify other courses that should be offered routinely, and that the next Institute Advisory Council meeting should focus on prioritization and longer range planning. There should be a criteria list to use to identify priorities. The main criteria that were identified are that local public health is the target audience, that the trainings focus on emergency preparedness, and that they have applicability on a day-to-day basis.

There was some discussion about future funding for the “Legal Nuts and Bolts” course. It may be appropriate for funding as a combined effort between the Institute and MDPH.

Next steps: Allison will put together a cost estimate, and future offerings of the course will be discussed further at the next meeting. In addition, Allison will provide a copy of the “Legal Nuts and Bolts” evaluation report for those who are interested in reviewing it. Amy will disseminate descriptions of other courses that have been identified as appropriate for the Institute for discussion at the next meeting for the purposes of longer term planning.

Next, Priscilla described trainings on liability protection for local public health employees and volunteers. These trainings have been conducted twice with Cheryl Sbarra. Information is also available on the MDPH website. While the on-line material is considered useful, it is effective to offer these trainings live. This topic is of great interest right now, particularly related to the use of volunteers, and it was suggested that this could be either combined with other trainings or brought to regional meetings. The information on liability protection is a good resource to include on the Institute website.

Next step: Amy will work with Priscilla to get the most updated documents and will post them on the website.

Other topics that were raised were training on the police caretaker function. Finally, Priscilla described the Public Health Emergency Law course that was offered by the CDC in 2005. While some components of that training have already been offered in Massachusetts, there are several that could be useful here, including training on privacy issues, information-sharing, HIPAA, mandatory vaccination and treatment, and government power to use private property.

Amy noted that several of the topics described by Priscilla were also topics that were identified in the November 21 conference as areas of interest for further training, including “Legal Nuts and Bolts” and an advanced public health law training.

It was also discussed that the Massachusetts Municipal Association may be a good contact for the Institute for trainings that could be of interest to city and town officials. Peg Harrington will get more information about training opportunities and resources that they offer and will share this information at a future meeting.

VI Guidelines for Developing Competency-Based Emergency Preparedness Training

Betsy Land from MDPH gave an overview of the Guidelines and plans for promoting them with course providers. The Advisory Council agreed that the Guidelines are an important resource and that the Institute should identify ways to promote the use of the Guidelines. This includes placing a link on the Institute website to the database. Courses on the Institute website should identify core competencies that they address. In addition, it is important to make sure that all of the bureaus at MDPH have access to the Guidelines.

The Institute agreed that it would be helpful to get input from the academic programs on the Advisory Council about how the Guidelines could be incorporated into their courses. One option for gaining this input would be through a subcommittee. After some discussion, it was decided that Betsy would contact the academic programs directly. In addition, Betsy’s promotional plan will be circulated to Advisory Council members for review and input. Betsy will summarize the input and will bring it back to the next Advisory Council meeting.

It was agreed that the Institute could have a role in helping to promote the Guidelines to make sure that course providers and stakeholders understand the valuable resources that the Guidelines offer. Allison acknowledged the many people who are on the Institute Advisory Council who had input into the Guidelines development.

VII. Outreach and Marketing to Promote Awareness of the Institute

Amy presented a plan for promoting the Institute internally throughout MDPH and externally through the local public health associations. Several resources were identified that could be useful for increasing awareness of the Institute at MDPH. These include putting information on the MDPH intranet and on the Center for Emergency Preparedness website, and providing information to the group of Health Educators from across MDPH that now are meeting.

In addition, there was discussion about including information about the Institute in an upcoming press conference, and it was agreed that the Institute should try to work with the MDPH media coordinator.

In terms of the website, Advisory Council members agreed to review it and provide Amy so that modifications can be made before intensively promoting it. There was discussion about various ways that Institute Advisory Council members could support the website and Institute activities. While increasing awareness of the Institute, it was also noted that the way that the Institute can be most valuable is by providing trainings that local public health think are useful.

V. Next steps/next meeting

There was discussion about establishing an on-going schedule for the Institute. When possible, meetings will be set to coincide with Coalition for Local Public Health meetings. There will be further discussion at the next meeting about how often Institute meetings should meet. To make Advisory Council meetings most effective, it was requested that written materials are provided in advance for prior review. The Advisory Council would like, in advance, a brief written description of any courses that are brought to the Institute for support. The Institute will develop a template course description.

Priscilla Neves gave a brief overview of Food Safety Inspection Training, which will be carried over as an agenda item for the next Institute Advisory Council meeting.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 13, 2006 from 12:00-2:00 at Wellesley Gateway. Conference call capability will be available.

Meeting adjournment time: 2:15 p.m.

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