Seattle-King County Advanced Practice Center (APC)

The Seattle-King County Advanced Practice Center (APC) is a resource for local public health agencies throughout the nation as it develops plans and builds local and regional capacity for responding to an act of bioterrorism or other public health emergency.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) currently funds eight local public health agencies to serve as APCs. Building best practices, APCs combine forces to help all local public health agencies nationwide prepare for, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies.

What the Seattle-King County APC can do for you

Advanced Practice Toolkits for Emergency Preparation

The Seattle-King County APC is actively working to help all local health departments nationwide prepare for, respond to and recover from Public Health Emergencies.

Toolkits have been developed that address a number of public health emergency preparedness issue including: isolation and quarantine response, techniques for engaging the business community, blueprints for building healthcare coalitions, trainings on crisis and risk communication, and strategies for connecting with organizations that serve vulnerable populations.

Some of these products include:

	Building a Healthcare Coalition The web-based toolkit can be used to support healthcare coalition development, or as a topic-specific reference to complement existing health response by providing a planning framework, tools and templates. King County Healthcare Coalition resources from the 2007 APC Training Conference.
	Planning and Managing Isolation & Quarantine Web Toolkit Designed to provide tools and trainings for LHD on the development of an I&Q plan, a response center and legal processes.
	"Hello, how may I help you?" - Creating and operating a Public Information Call Center A toolkit to assist public health departments in building capacity to handle a surge in phone calls during an emergency (in MS Word)
	Emergency Risk Communication Course For public health professionals and students. Developed in collaboration with the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, this course was designed to provide an introduction to emergency risk communication concepts and principles.
	CD-based Emergency Risk Communications Training Guide For anyone communicating with the public in a crisis, Speak First: Communicating Effectively in Times of Crisis and Uncertainty is a proven, practical training for building the skills to delivering first messages in the early hours of a crisis. Learn what you need to know, to sharpen your skills and to teach others how to master these best practices. Order now through National Association of County & City Health Officials.
	Public Health Workforce Activation A web-based toolkit to guide local public health agencies in the development of a response-ready workforce by defining surge functions and matching staff resources to emergent response needs.
	Pandemic flu preparedness resources for business engagement
	Learn about the other seven Advanced Practice Centers: Cambridge Public Health Department (MA) DeKalb County Board of Health (GA) Twin Cities Metro APC (MN) Montgomery County (MD) Santa Clara County Public Health Department (CA) Tarrant County Public Health (TX) Western New York Public Health Alliance (Rural APC)

For more information on this APC or these tools, please contact:

Carina Elsenboss
APC Program Manager
Public Health - Seattle & King County
401 5th Ave, Suite 1300
Seattle, WA 98104
Carina.Elsenboss@kingcounty.gov
206-263-8722