Presented December 14, 2017 for the Poison Center and Public Health Collaboration Community of Practice.
Presenters
Gaylord Lopez, PharmD, DABAT, Director – Georgia Poison Center
Stephanie Hon, PharmD, DABAT, Assistant Director – Georgia Poison Center
Laura Edison, DVM, MPH, Epidemiology Field Officer – Geogria Department of Health
Nelly Miles, BA, Director – Georgia Bureau of Investigation Office of Public Affairs
During an emergency, the state of Georgia depends on public health staff and volunteers to respond. It is imperative that staff are safe before, during and after deployment. Emergency response workers must be protected from the hazardous conditions that disasters and other emergencies create1. In October 2016 and September 2017, Hurricanes Matthew and Irma caused widespread evacuation of Georgia residents, initiating a tremendous sheltering effort. Hundreds of public health responders were deployed to assist with sheltering and other aspects of the response. DPH rapidly developed a novel electronic Responder Safety, Tracking and Resilience module, which was used to track public health responders and monitor their health and safety while deployed.
Objective:
To better understand the importance of monitoring responders during public health emergencies and to learn how the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) developed and deployed an electronic responder monitoring tool.
Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) epidemiologists have responded to multiple emergent outbreaks with diverse surveillance needs. During the 2009 H1N1 influenza response, it was necessary to electronically integrate multiple reporting sources and view population-level data, while during the 2014–2015 West African Ebola epidemic, it was necessary to easily collect and view individual level data from travelers to facilitate early detection of potential imported Ebola disease. DPH in-house information technology (IT) staff work closely with epidemiologists to understand and accommodate surveillance needs. Through this collaboration, IT created a robust electronic surveillance and outbreak management system (OMS) to accommodate routine reporting of notifiable diseases and outbreak investigations, and surveillance during emergent events.
Objective
To describe how flexible surveillance systems can be rapidly adapted and deployed, and increase the efficiency and accuracy of surveillance, during responses to outbreaks and all hazard emergent events.