During an aviation flu outbreak, emergency response roles will be reversed. Public Health departments will lead the response efforts while police and fire departments will play a necessary and equally important secondary role. This change in roles requires some rethinking of strategies by all parties, as the City of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Health Bureau and police and other departments found out in a recent pandemic flu exercise.
"It was clear going into the exercise that several participants didn't initially fully comprehend how chaotic a pandemic could potentially be, and the complex implications of what their roles might be in such an emergency," said Julie C. Zumas, MPH. As pandemic flu coordinator with the Bethlehem Health Bureau, Zumas and her department directed the day-long exercise.
"Very quickly into the exercise, however, many of those participants realized how large a role they might be asked to play in a pandemic, and that there are things you can anticipate and plan for in advance," she said.
While the Health Bureau took the lead in the exercise, several other city departments participated included the Bethlehem Fire, EMS, Police and Communications departments; the Bethlehem Mayor's Office; the Pennsylvania Department of Health; local colleges, universities, and school districts; the two major local hospitals; the local airport authority; and agencies such as Northampton County Mental Health and the Lehigh Valley chapter of the American Red Cross.
Although Bethlehem Health Bureau officials have participated in numerous emergency preparedness exercises, this exercise marked the first time they led an exercise. More than 50 individuals participated in the drill, in which two mock cases of Avian Flu were reported in Bethlehem as part of a global pandemic. In the scenario, the city faced a widespread outbreak within days.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an Avian Flu pandemic may come in waves, each lasting six to eight weeks. Schools and businesses could be closed for weeks or months, and health care, police and other services could be severely disrupted.
"This exercise is an important step in testing and refining our collaborative response plans," said Judith K. Maloney, Director of the Bethlehem Health Bureau. "From the exercise, the Public Health team will lead follow up initiatives with the other participants to address key issues."
Zumas said activities stressed how and when volunteers would be deployed, staffing issues and transportation's role. "Through the exercise, we learned that schools have their own way of responding to emergencies and we collectively needed to understand that process," she said. "And the public transportation aspect would be critical in evacuations, particularly for mass quarantines or moving the physically disabled or elderly to evacuation sites."
"We were very impressed with the interaction of the various agencies involved, and the sharing of ideas for enhancing the pandemic response process," said Steve Wood, Vice President, Global Secure Systems, who facilitated the exercise. "By leading collaborative exercises like this one, Bethlehem Health Bureau gains invaluable perspective for areas that may need adjusting in response plans. At the same time, this exercise was eye-opening for other responders to better understand their roles in a pandemic, which quite likely will be very different from their traditional emergency response roles."
For the exercise, Zumas wanted to partner with a public health emergency response expert which is why the Health Bureau selected Virginia-based Global Secure Corp. to successfully conduct the exercise.
"From our first contact with Global Secure, we were immediately impressed with their public health experience and qualifications," said Zumas. "With only six weeks to prepare, their team asked the right questions and got so much in-depth information, they created a scenario perfectly tailored to our needs and resources. They really became a part of our team, staying in touch continually before, during and after the exercise and did a great job of summarizing the feedback."
In the post-exercise evaluation facilitated by Global Secure, participants identified workforce surge strategies and preparation, training and safety, volunteer credentialing, security, and proactive communication as the major lessons learned.
The most important strengths noted by the exercise participants were a well-functioning Health Alert Network; sound infection control methods; and workers who effectively juggled many tasks and roles during the crisis. "Since the exercise, people from various departments are approaching me with a new understanding of the importance of a collaborative response and with ideas for their own roles," Zumas noted.
"The good news from this exercise is that there already is a lot of behind-the-scenes work being done," she said. "There are people thinking about this, working on this, preparing for it on a daily basis so that we will be as fully prepared as possible to respond to any pandemic emergency."
About Global Secure
Global Secure Corp. provides a broad range of essential crisis preparedness and response software and services to federal, state and local public health, public safety and critical incident response agencies. The firm's proprietary Response Manager System provides an online collaboration and multi-media alerting platform for preparing and responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and major public health emergencies such as a pandemic flu epidemic. Other offerings include products utilized for managing emergency volunteers and hospital surge capacity, as well as the training and exercises required for an effective response.
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