U of M to Help Communities Prepare for Public Health and Bioterrorism Emergencies

$2.7 Million Grant Will Help Prepare Health Workers

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (October 24, 2005)--The University of Minnesota’s schools of nursing and public health have received a $2.7 million federal grant to educate and train healthcare workers in emergency preparedness, tailoring efforts to the unique needs of specific Minnesota communities as they prepare for a public health emergency or bioterrorism event.

The grant was awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Goals of the project are to reduce disease and injury by involving the public health system early in an emergency and by making sure the various health care providers and government units coordinate their efforts. The project will involve organizations from all over the state in an effort called Minnesota Emergency Readiness Education and Training (MERET), which will train approximately 10,000 Minnesota health workers in the next three years, using workshops, speakers, Web casts, videos, and CD-ROMs.

Tailoring plans to community needs

Project director Carol O’Boyle, Ph.D., R.N., of the University’s School of Nursing, said the program has a unique feature: “It focuses on building on what is already there, on what each community already has in place in terms of emergency preparedness. That allows us to determine what else the community needs to do, what help it may need doing it.”

This is more effective than a one-size-fits-all approach, said O’Boyle, an expert in infection control, because it addresses idiosyncrasies of individual communities, including population, weather, transportation, availability of healthcare workers and volunteer firefighters, cultural differences, and whether a community is rural or urban.

“Some rural areas in Minnesota, for example, have a high proportion of elderly people while others have a high proportion of children,” she said. “Obviously, very different things need to happen in those two communities during a health emergency. We also have communities where language differences make it hard to even recognize potential public health emergencies, much less deal with them, so in those cases we would include translators in our plans.”

The University will partner with professionals in infection control, public health, emergency services, and health care organizations at the state and local level, and will prepare retired health care workers, lay health volunteers, and other allied health care workers to help with emergencies.

In awarding the grant, HRSA reviewers said the program’s focus on assessing and responding to individual community needs could make it a national model.

Building on University expertise

The project builds on expertise developed by schools in the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center (AHC). MERET will address the psychosocial and emotional needs of emergency health care workers in extraordinarily stressful circumstances—an area in which O’Boyle has developed expertise in the School of Nursing. Training and curriculum development will be led by Debra Olson, M.P.H., R.N., of the School of Public Health’s Centers for Public Health Education and Outreach, who has led that school’s cutting-edge distance learning efforts. Olson’s team will create online and in-person training modules that will be used by health workers in the project. Staff from the AHC’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) will also participate in conducting and evaluating drills and mock disaster exercises.

”We hope to put what we know about technology-enhanced learning and public health preparedness to use on this project, working to meet the training needs of health care workers and other first responders at the local level,” Olson said.

Project activities will be planned and implemented in cooperation with the State of Minnesota Office of Emergency Preparedness, the Minnesota Senior Advisory Committee – which is co-chaired by the Minnesota Commissioners of Health and Public Safety, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Minnesota Area Health Education Center.

The Academic Health Center is home to the University of Minnesota’s six health professional schools and colleges – including the Schools of Nursing and Public Health – as well as several health-related centers and institutes. Founded in 1851, the University is one of the oldest and largest land grant institutions in the country. The AHC prepares the new health professionals who improve the health of communities, discover and deliver new treatments and cures, and strengthen the health economy.

Contact: Mary Pattock, School of Nursing, 612-624-0939 Diana Harvey, School of Public Health, 612-625-7134