PUBLIC HEALTH PREPAREDNESS: MOBILIZING STATE BY STATE
Section 2: Snapshots of Public Health Preparedness in States and Directly Funded Localities: Connecticut
Related Website: Connecticut Department of Public Health
Connecticut’s Statewide Exercise to Distribute Emergency Medications
Exercises are critical to ensure successful federal-state-local interactions during an emergency.
In April 2006, the Connecticut
Department of Public Health
(DPH) conducted a full-scale
seven-day exercise to test the state’s
ability to order, receive, and distribute medications
from the CDC Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) in
the event of a public health emergency. An outbreak of
a deadly infectious disease was simulated in which the
local pharmaceutical supply ran out. The cooperation of
federal, state and local government agencies, hospitals,
municipalities, and schools was critical to the success of
this exercise.
The exercise involved a mock receipt, storage, and staging of medical assets from the SNS and the distribution of assets to seven local public health departments and four hospitals across the state that acted as local points of dispensing (POD) and treatment centers, respectively. DPH delivered simulated medications to distribution points throughout the state within 24 hours of receipt. Local public health officials then worked to dispense 1,000 regimens per hour to residents and hospitals.
DPH collaborated with the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) to plan this exercise according to Federal Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program guidelines. Local public health departments that did not host a POD provided planning and operational support. DPH, DEMHS, and participating localities and hospitals activated their respective emergency operations centers and used the Incident Command System throughout the response. As a result, PODs distributed medication to a total of 1,539 volunteer “patients” across the state. This was the first time dispensing throughput had been documented in great detail, and the data will serve as a baseline on which to improve mass dispensing.
Snapshot of Public Health Preparedness
Below are activities conducted by Connecticut in the area of public health preparedness. They support CDC preparedness goals in the areas of detection and reporting, control, and improvement; crosscutting activities help prepare for all stages of an event. These data are not comprehensive and do not cover all preparedness activities.
Disease Detection and Investigation
The sooner public health professionals can detect diseases or other health threats and investigate their causes and effects in the community, the more quickly they can minimize population exposure.
| Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Detect & Report | Could receive and investigate urgent disease reports 24/7/3651 | Yes |
|
Telephone | |
| Linked state and local health personnel to share information about disease outbreaks across state lines (through the CDC Epi-X system)3 | Yes | |
| Conducted year-round surveillance for seasonal influenza4 | Yes | |
* Telephone, fax, and electronic reporting are all viable options for urgent disease reporting, as long as the public health department has someone assigned to receive the reports 24/7/365. 1 CDC, DSLR; 2005 2 CDC, DSLR; 2006 3 CDC, Epi-X; 2007 4 HHS, OIG; 2007 |
||
Public Health Laboratories
Public health laboratories test and confirm agents that can threaten health. For example, advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques and subsequent reporting to the CDC database (PulseNet) are critical to recognize nationwide outbreaks from bacteria that can cause severe illness, such as E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes.
| Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Detect & Report | Number of Connecticut laboratories in the Laboratory Response Network1 | 1 |
| Rapidly identified E. coli O157:H7 using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
None | |
|
N/A | |
| Rapidly identified Listeria monocytogenes using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
17 |
|
|
100% | |
| Had a laboratory information management system that could create, send, and receive messages3 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
|
No | |
| Had a rapid method to send urgent messages to frontline laboratories that perform initial screening of clinical specimens3 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
| Crosscutting | Conducted bioterrorism exercise that met CDC criteria4 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes |
| Conducted exercise to test chemical readiness that met CDC criteria4 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
1 CDC, DBPR; 2007 2 CDC, DSLR; 2007 3 APHL, Public Health Laboratory Issues in Brief: Bioterrorism Capacity; May 2007 4 CDC, DSLR; 2006 |
||
Response
Planning provides a framework for how a public health department will respond during an emergency. The plans can be tested through external reviews, exercises, and real events. After-action reports assess what worked well during an exercise or real event and how the department can improve.
| Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Control | Developed a public health response plan, including pandemic influenza response, crisis and emergency risk communication, and Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)1, 2 | Yes |
| Connecticut SNS plan reviewed by CDC2 | Yes | |
|
69 | |
| Number of Connecticut cities in the Cities Readiness Initiative3 | 2 | |
| Crosscutting | Developed roles and responsibilities for a multi-jurisdictional response (ICS) with:1 (8/05 – 8/06) | |
|
Yes | |
|
Yes | |
|
Yes | |
| Public health department staff participated in training to support cooperative agreement activities4 | Yes | |
| Public health laboratories conducted training for first responders5 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
| Activated public health emergency operations center as part of a drill, exercise, or real event*†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | Yes | |
| Conducted a drill or exercise for key response partners to test communications when power and land lines were unavailable†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | No | |
| Improve | Finalized at least one after-action report with an improvement plan following an exercise or real event†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | Yes |
* Activation means rapidly staffing all eight core ICS functional roles in the public health emergency operations center with one person per position. This capability is critical to maintain in case of large-scale or complex incidents, even though not every incident requires full staffing of the ICS. † States were expected to perform these activities from 9/1/2006 to 8/30/2007. These data represent results from the first half of this period only. 1 CDC, DSLR; 2006 2 CDC, DSNS; 2007 3 CDC, DSNS CRI; 2007 4 CDC, DSLR; 1999-2005 5 APHL, Chemical Terrorism Preparedness; May 2007 6 CDC, DSLR; 2007 |
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