Bristol County Executive Board Meeting PHEP Coalition
July 16, 2013
Attendance: see attendance sheet
Acronyms:
BP1- Budget Period 1 (August 2012-June 2013)
BP2- Budget Period 2 (July 2013-June 2014)
CDC- Center for Disease Control and Prevention
DPH- Massachusetts Department of Public Health
EB- Executive Board (sometimes referred to as EC-Executive Committee)
EDS- Emergency Dispensing Site
LSAC- Local and State Advisory Committee
MHOA- Massachusetts Health Officers Association
MRC- Medical Reserve Corps
PHEP- Public Health Emergency Preparedness
TAR- Technical Assistance Review
Decision Made / Action to be takenThe extra $698 in the MRC training budget will be moved to the general Training budget line item. / Elaine will move the money appropriately.
Motion made and seconded / Vote
Meeting called to order at 12:20pm / Unanimous
Accept minutes from June 18, 2013, EB meeting as written. / Unanimous
Meeting adjourned 1:16pm / Unanimous
Documents sent out before the meeting:
- 07-16-13 EB Agenda
- 07-16-13 Coalition Agenda
- 06-18-13 Coalition meeting minutes unapproved
- 06-18-13 EB meeting minutes unapproved
- Bristol BP-2 EC July 2013
- June-July Deliverables report
EB meeting called to order: 12:20pm
Henry Vaillancourt, EB vice chair, called the meeting to order. There is a quorum.
Approve previous months minutes: Henry Vaillancourt
A motion was made to approve June minutes as written, seconded, and approved unanimously with no discussion.
Elaine LaCoursiere MAHB
Elaine reported that the funding has not yet been received by the MAHB. It is anticipated that it may not be available until August. This may be a problem for communities who would like to register early for the MHOAtraining. Early discounted registration must be completed by August 31st. The EB will announce at the Coalition that if the money is still not available by the August meeting, then people who would like to attend the conference will either need to pay out of pocket to be reimbursed when the funds are received or pay the non-discounted rate when the funds are available.
There is an official Policy for using PHEP funds for MHOA conference that was distributed with the June post- meeting documents. This will be enforced although Diane is unsure about how extensive the auditing will be. This will be announced at the Coalition meeting.
Elaine asked for guidance on an outstanding invoice from Seekonk for blankets. Elaine did not receive the invoice before the end of BP1. The EB recommended that Beth Hallal either pay for them out of town funds or return them and repurchase them during BP2 to use BP2 funds.
In the budget, there is currently $10,698 allotted to the MRC training but during the June Coalition meeting, it was voted to allot $10,000 to MRC training. Elaine will transfer the $698 into the training budget line item.
The EB asked that Marcia attend the August EB meeting when all EB members and the Coordinator are present to explain tracking capabilities.
Coordinator Update- Denise Phaneuf (Denise was on vacation)
Amy said that she will be talking about National Preparedness Month at the Coalition meeting.
Leon asked if everybody was okay with the final list of community assignments for each of the Planners. The only change from the original list is that Amy will work with Attleboro and Denise will work with Stoughton. Diane will send out the final list to the Coalition.
DPH - Diane Brown-Couture
Diane informed the EB of the four weekly topics that the DPH will be sending out for National Preparedness Month: Week 1- family and individual preparedness, Week 2- volunteerism, Week 3- Access and functional needs, and Week 4-flu vaccinations. The LaVoie group is working with the DPH and will be sending things to the DPH.The DPH will send everything out to major media. Amy said that this was discussed at the LSAC meeting the day before and is included in her LSAC update.
Diane sent out the BP1 TAR scores for Region 5 that morning. She would like to do a presentation to the Coalition about the TAR scores and areas that need improvement. Diane would like to do this in September or October and will coordinate with Denise to get this on the agenda.
WebEOC will be rolled out in the fall and Kerry Evans from the DPH will be giving a training at a Coalition meeting, probably in the fall. Diane will ask that people bring their iPad to train on WebEOC and then there will be a practical exercise the following week.
As it is understood right now, a TAR will not be required for each town this year. Communities will be asked to work on the identified gaps in BP1. Some gaps are common and can be addressed in Coalition meetings, others are town-by-town. Leon asked why scores were so low for Section 10. Diane explained that staffing numbers are included in Section 10 and since plans are written using the clinical model, it requires a lot of staff. Diane would like the plans to move into a more rapid dispensing model which will minimize staffing requirements. She would also like to see each community to only have 1 primary EDS which would also minimize staffing. Another gap is a lack of completed ICS rosters for 2 operational periods. Diane feels that every town can fill in the gaps in the roster. Communication scores can improve through additional documentation for things already in place. Multi-discipline meetings are another area which could use improvement. Diane believes that if health departments are having trouble getting their local partners to meet, they may have to go circumvent the obstacles and go through alternative channels. According to the CDC, the passing grade is 69%. Dr. Vaillancourt was concerned about the Coalition score as a whole. Diane said that her job is to always push for better scores. Larry Perry said that so much of the local ability to work on Emergency Preparedness comes down to staffing and maybe at this point there should be a regional approach. Diane appreciated the constraints of local health and encourages people to move forward, even if it is slow by making public health visible.
Meeting adjourned at 1:16pm.
Next Meeting: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 12pm
Respectfully submitted,
Amy Palmer