October 2010 Inside this issue:
Technology and Preparedness..................................................1
It took more than a village to build the new Workspace. It
took a state!..........................................................................1
Director’s Chair .......................................................................2
MDH Division Preparedness News .........................................2
DRAT! A new program for teens ........................................2
Expanding training in the Radiological Emergency
Preparedness Program..........................................................3
Hazmat Practice Sample Program........................................3
Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Planning Update ............4
Upcoming Events.....................................................................4
M-STEP conference in November .......................................4
Local Public Health Preparedness............................................4
Bloomington Public Health volunteers increase capacity to
respond to public health emergencies ..................................4
Communications Quick Tips ...................................................4
When to use it; when to lose it.............................................4
Emergency Preparedness Resources........................................5
ICS Course changed from IS-100.a to IS-100.b...................5
Editorial Board.........................................................................5
Technology and Preparedness
It took more than a village to build the new
Workspace. It took a state!
A new version of the Minnesota Department of Health’s
Workspace was released on October 6, 2010. The Workspace
is a password protected website used by MDH staff, local
health departments (LHDs), and other emergency
preparedness and health partners for planning and response
collaboration. It holds the Health Alert Network (HAN)
messaging tools, the Public Health Directory of health
responders to emergencies, and a document library.
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Search: This function will search all Workspace Web
pages and documents and has the future capacity for
searching blogs, discussion groups, images and more.
Self registration: To gain access to the Workspace,
potential new users will complete a self-registration that
will be sent to the Workspace Administrator in their
organization for review and approval.
Workspace Comment message board: Use Workspace
Comment to tell us what you like and don’t like about the
new Workspace, any problems you are having, and what
you don’t see but think might be useful. We’ll monitor
Workspace Comment and respond.
Building a new Workspace; behind the scenes
Twenty document managers have been trained to move 3000
documents from the old Workspace to the new. To date,
nearly 1000 documents have been moved. Some have been
discarded as no longer useful, and the rest are still on the old
Workspace waiting to be moved.
One hundred nineteen Workspace Administrators/HAN
Coordinators from LHDs, tribes, hospitals and MDH have
been trained to manage their organizations and Workspace
members. More training sessions have been scheduled.
Three thousand four hundred eighty seven (3,487) Workspace
users who belonged to 426 different organizations were
moved to the new Workspace. Eighty-five contact groups
were moved, and procedures were developed for the group
owners and administrators.
Thanks to all of you who have told us about features that
weren’t quite right with the new Workspace. There have been
125 issues reported to Workspace Help, and we’re working
our way through those, fixing bugs as they are reported.
The users of the old Workspace described the
features they needed for preparedness and
response work. Your suggestions created the
requirements for this new Workspace.
What’s new in the Workspace?
The new Workspace has the current features of
the Health Alert Network plus these new
features:
October 2010
The team that developed the new Workspace includes Mark
Doerr, lead developer; Toby McAdams, Webmaster; William
Schmidt, tactical communications coordinator who also
served as project manager on the ‘big push’ to finish the new
Workspace; Mike Ring, developer; Jody Braaten, developer;
and Myrlah Olson, supervisor of Partner Alerting and
Communication Team.
Next steps for the team include fixing bugs as you report
them, fine tuning some of the new features that are still a little
rough, ongoing training, and completing the new Workspace
messaging tools for HAN, general messages, and the auto-call
notifications.
Contact Workspace ([email protected]) if you have
questions or comments about Workspace. And thank you for
your patience during this long process and for your useful
advice.
Director’s Chair
Greetings! For one issue only, I’m stepping in for Aggie
Leitheiser, the Directory of Emergency Preparedness, so she
can enjoy a well-earned travel adventure. She often brings us
back chocolate, so we are eagerly awaiting her return.
The past few months have been filled with successes long in
the making. The rollout of the new Workspace is a
monumental achievement, and the culmination of more
painstaking and intricate work than ever imagined. Our
Partner Alerting and Communications Team listened to the
suggestions from many users, and we hope you enjoy the more
streamlined structure, the wonderful search function, and other
features.
We also have made great strides in the past couple months in
building the capacity and capability to support the deployment
of the Mobile Medical Unit (MMU). MDH and our joint
powers agreement team have secured temperature-controlled
space near our offices that allows us to perform maintenance
work and conduct training whenever needed. We have built a
training manual and curriculum, and graduated one more class
of Technical Operations Team members who set up, run, and
strike the unit. Our partners at the University of Minnesota
are far along with developing training materials for clinicians
who will staff the MMU.
integration of the public health and the healthcare sides of
response. There was also much discussion about the uncertain
times for funding of our work, and the need for health to stake
its claim as an integral part of public safety.
Thank you for all your important work, and wishing you a
wonderful fall.
Jane Braun
MDH Division Preparedness News
DRAT! A new program for teens
DRAT! Disaster Readiness Actions for Teens is a youth
emergency preparedness training program with the goal of
engaging, educating and empowering youth to respond safely
during critical incidents such as natural disasters, man-made
incidents, public health emergencies and school threats.
The DRAT! program is designed to be taught using a trainthe-trainer concept of youth or adult trainers. Each of the six
modules addresses a separate area of emergency preparedness:
 Why prepare
 Stay safe
 Make a plan
 Make a kit
 Stay calm
 Celebration of knowledge
Throughout each module, the participants have the ability to
demonstrate their knowledge with group interaction or handson demonstrations.
During the training, each youth will receive a folder of
preparedness planning materials to share with their parent/
primary caregiver, a youth Psychological First Aid Help Card,
and a starter emergency preparedness kit. At the end of the
training, participants receive a certificate of completion and
are tasked with bringing the messages of preparedness back to
their families and community.
The widespread flooding across southern Minnesota last
month is a reminder of the unpredictability of our climate as
well as our work; our hearts go out to those affected and our
thanks to those who responded and are now working on
recovery. This incident did, however, demonstrate a
tremendous level of growth in the speed and effectiveness of
the public health and healthcare system response compared to
the floods in August of 07. We observed great strides in
planning and response at all levels and across disciplines. It is
sad yet satisfying that many of our agencies are now getting
pretty good at responding to severe flooding.
The annual Directors of Public Health Preparedness meeting
in Rhode Island in September had an unprecedented level of
Ready to Respond Newsletter
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Many youth emergency preparedness educational programs
exist for young children, but very few programs have been
developed specifically for tweens and teens. In order to
engage our target population in the program, the name and
logo were selected through a survey of youth in grades 5-12.
MDH also used a focus group of emergency responders, local
public health, schools, healthcare providers, youth groups and
youth representatives. Their task was to review the training
materials and provide input into the contents of each module
so the training could meet the needs of various youth-related
organizations.
If you are interested in becoming a DRAT! trainer or you want
to bring the DRAT! program into your community, please
contact Nancy Carlson, at 651-201-5707 or e-mail
[email protected]
Typically, only counties and local jurisdictions in the
Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) around the nuclear facility
participate in these exercises. Because the potential for
radiological events exist beyond the EPZs, the MDH
Environmental Health REP program and Office of Emergency
Preparedness will expand future training opportunities for
radiological awareness, emergency response and public health
roles in radiological emergencies. For more information,
contact Sherrie Flaherty, Radioactive Materials Unit
Supervisor, at 651-201-4522 or [email protected].
Hazmat Practice Sample Program
Hazardous materials (or ‘hazmat’) incidents occur on a regular
basis throughout Minnesota. Hazmat incidents also vary in
scale and severity, ranging from a relatively small gasoline
spill to a catastrophic rupture of a railcar carrying hydrochloric
acid. One of the first steps in mitigating a hazmat incident is to
determine the physical properties of the chemical (e.g.,
flammability, toxicity, ability to form noxious or toxic vapors,
etc). While these characteristics are easily determined for
known chemical hazards, hazmat teams often respond to
unknown chemicals that present unique challenges for safely
and rapidly dealing with potentially deadly consequences
resulting from their release.
Minnesota uses a network of highly trained hazardous
materials professionals to respond to these unknown chemical
threats. In the field, hazmat teams use chemical identification
technology adapted over the last decade from instruments
previously only available only to dedicated laboratory
professionals. This equipment provides hazmat first
responders with the ability to quickly and accurately identify
many unknown materials in the field. However, this advanced
equipment requires responders to maintain proficiency and
receive training on new methodologies as they are developed.
Expanding training in the Radiological
Emergency Preparedness Program
For years, the MDH Environmental Health Division’s
Radiation Protection section has played an active role in the
Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) program. With
other federal, state and local agencies, MDH annually
participates in both a drill and Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA)-evaluated exercise for
radiological response to an incident at one of the state’s
nuclear power generating plants.
At the 2010 exercise of the plan for Prairie Island Nuclear
Generating Power plant, the MDH activated the Department
Operations Center (DOC) in conjunction with the State
Emergency Operations Center. During this exercise, the DOC
played an integral role in notifications of state, county and
local public health offices. These agencies then began
planning for the next phase of the event, including recovery
and re-entry activities that consider the unique characteristics
of a radiological event.
Ready to Respond Newsletter
In January 2009, the Minnesota Department of Health Public
Health Laboratory (MN-PHL) began the MDH Practice
Sample Program for hazmat first responders. As part of the
program, MN-PHL sends a set of ‘unknown’ materials to the
hazmat teams, which then use their equipment to identify
them. In addition to the chemical identification, participants
also must provide examples of information that would be
reported to the Incident Commander during a release of the
agent. Samples are sent quarterly with the goal of assessing
the accuracy of results and providing hazmat teams with a
means of maintaining their proficiency with the field
instruments. MN-PHL analyzes data from responding teams
and generates reports of the tabulated results for the
participating hazmat teams.
The MDH Practice Sample Program contributes significantly
to the relationship between MN-PHL and the state’s hazmat
teams. Feedback from participants is consistently positive, and
teams have begun implementing new testing methods and
protocols based on lessons learned from participating in this
program.
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Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Planning
Update
Building on the 2009-2010 pandemic experience, MDH is
now in the midst of exciting new efforts to coordinate
department-wide planning for future responses and to report
the resulting plan to CDC. Over the next few months,
technical experts involved in pandemic influenza preparedness
will begin drafting descriptions of the Department's basic plan
and technical sections for operations in the event of a new
pandemic. In early 2011, MDH will connect with external
partners to confirm roles and responsibilities during a
pandemic influenza response. Operational sections will be
routed for comment and suggestion as they become available,
with revisions continuing through the spring in preparation for
the July 31, 2011, federal submission.
In the meantime, MDH will submit an update on its
Improvement Plan activities to CDC by November 30.
Additional details on the Department's planning efforts will
become available as planning develops. Please contact Jessica
Southwell, pandemic influenza planner, at 651.201.5803 or
[email protected] if you have questions about the
project.
Upcoming Events
M-STEP conference in November
Are We Really Prepared? is the theme of the ninth annual
Minnesota Symposium on Terrorism and Emergency
Preparedness (M-STEP) conference to be held on November
16 – 17, 2010 at the Northland Inn Hotel in Brooklyn Park,
MN.
The conference features over 20 in-depth presentations and
topic expert speakers providing the latest updates and best
practices on preparedness from across the nation and select
foreign countries. Attendees will share best practices on
collaborative emergency planning; discuss preparedness
outreach and education for targeted populations; learn about
innovative approaches to preparedness; hear updates on
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/FEMA initiatives;
learn about updates on findings from preparedness research,
pandemic influenza, ‘homegrown’ radical terrorists, cyber
attacks and more.
The conference is hosted by the Minnesota State Colleges and
Universities Hennepin Technical College. For more
information and to register, go to
http://www.hennepintech.edu/mstep/index.html
Local Public Health Preparedness
Bloomington Public Health volunteers increase
capacity to respond to public health emergencies
When planning for the worst case public health emergency,
Bloomington Public Health (BPH) needs to ensure
medications reach 168,000 residents who live in Bloomington,
Edina and Richfield within 48 hours. With a staff of 60
people, 28 are nurses. This creates a significant gap when
trying to reach residents in a timely manner. To bridge this
gap, BPH applied for grants to build a cadre of trained
volunteers to assist with this task.
In 2009, BPH started a Community Emergency Response
Team (CERT), which trains citizens to prepare for
emergencies through personal preparedness activities. The
training includes first aid, fire suppression and light search and
rescue skills. However, CERT lacked the training components
needed to reach community members about how they could
help in a large-scale public health response. With the support
of the City of Minneapolis, BPH developed a new public
health CERT curriculum to increase their capacity to respond.
According to Lisa Brodsky, BPH emergency preparedness
coordinator, “This curriculum is a perfect fit for CERT
members. It addresses the critical gap in mass dispensing
planning -- the need for pre-registered, trained, non-medical
public health volunteers.” CERT members were called upon
during the fall 2009 H1N1 flu response for large public flu
vaccination clinics.
In addition to CERT, in August 2010, BPH established
Minnesota’s newest Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) unit, the
Bloomington-Edina-Richfield Public Health Volunteers
(MRC/CERT). The MRC program is a volunteer program for
practicing and retired physicians, nurses and other licensed
and non-licensed health professionals, and citizens who are
interested in health issues and helping their community
prepare for and respond to a public health emergency.
According to Jackie Weber, BPH’s CERT/MRC coordinator,
“BPH plans to cross train CERT and MRC volunteers to be
able to effectively respond to a public health emergency while
building community resiliency.”
Communications Quick Tips
When to use it; when to lose it
It is vital to check any materials created by someone else
before you use them to ensure words say what you want them
to say, are free of typos and that images convey the message
you want to send. The bottom line -- the materials you use are
your responsibility.
Ideally, old or draft versions of documents are purged
regularly. In reality, it is common for multiple versions of
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documents, displays and other materials to exist and
accumulate because cleaning house and consolidating
documents are often the projects that wait while other tasks
with immediate deadlines take precedence. Contributing to the
problem is downsizing, which spreads work thinner, turnover
of staff members and fading memories.
If you use documents created by other people or organizations,
make sure you look at and read what you use. If you create
documents and other materials, delete draft and outdated
versions from computers when final or updated versions are
created. This might mean extracting unused, yet important
information and creating a new file or files under a different
name to reflect that it is not a finished document. It definitely
means discarding hard copies as soon as they become outdated
or if they contain errors or typos. Otherwise, during an
emergency or even in non-emergency situations, it is easy to
pass along wrong versions.
In the end, teamwork is needed. Those who create materials
need to build time into project schedules to purge documents,
holding off other projects temporarily to do this if necessary.
If you use materials from other people, make sure they contain
correct information.
Emergency Preparedness Resources
MN.
DID YOU KNOW…a new group has been added in the
Minnesota grouping structure for MN.TRAIN? The MDH
Public Health Laboratory will be using MN.TRAIN in their
work to train staff in other laboratories (located in Minnesota
and other labs nationally) in the Minnesota Department of
Health’s Environmental Lab Accreditation Program (MNELAP).
If you are familiar with MN-ELAP and work with Susan
Wyatt from MDH’s MN-ELAP program, you may be creating
a MN.TRAIN account shortly. If so, be sure to add yourself
the Laboratory group: Environmental or Lab Assessors.
All other laboratory staff unfamiliar with the MN-ELAP
program will add themselves to a group based on where you
work in MN: at the regional level, then select your county,
then select your work discipline.
ICS Course changed from IS-100.a to IS-100.b
The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) has revised the
ICS 100.a course, Introduction to Incident Command System,
to reflect lessons learned since its release in 2006. This course
is compliant with the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) and uses the objectives developed collaboratively by
the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, the United States
Fire Administration, the United States Department of
Agriculture and the Emergency Management Institute.
IS-100.b is an updated version of the IS-100.a course. If you
have successfully completed IS-100 or IS-100.a, you may
want to review the new version of the course, but you do not
need to re-take the updated version. For credentialing
purposes, the courses are equivalent.
Send any questions or inquiries to [email protected]
Editorial Board
Editorial Board members include representatives from MDH
divisions that receive preparedness funds.
Aggie Leitheiser, Director of Emergency Preparedness
Marcia Robért, Editor, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Jessica Southwell, Infectious Disease, Epidemiology,
Prevention and Control
Kirsti Taipale, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Lynne Markus, Environmental Health
Nancy Torner, Communications Office
Nathan Kendrick, Public Health Laboratory
Steven Dwine, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Contributors to this issue
Jacob Owens, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Jane Braun, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Janice Maine, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Marcia Robért, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Myrlah Olson, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Nancy Carlson, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Nancy Torner, Communications Office
Nathan Kendrick, Public Health Laboratory
Sherrie Flaherty, Environmental Health
Toby McAdams, Office of Emergency Preparedness
Office of Emergency Preparedness
625 North Robert Street
P.O. Box 64975
St. Paul, MN, 55164-0975
Phone: 651- 201-5700
www.health.state.mn.us
Ready to Respond Newsletter
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