Safe Seniors: Appalachian Disaster and Emergency Health

Information OutreachMary Spalding, MA, MLIS

Western Maryland Area Health Education Center

This program is sponsored in whole or in part by the National Library of Medicine

DescriptionThe goal of Safe Seniors: Appalachian Disaster and Emergency Health Information Outreach is to improve disaster medicine and public health information access for health professionals, first responders and others (paid or volunteer) who play a role in health-related disaster preparedness, response, and recovery in three rural Appalachian counties in Maryland, with a focus on the elderly population. 

Photo by Nancy Frost

1) To develop and conduct a needs assessment to be disseminated to at least 100 local libraries and first responders, such as police and fire departments, Red Cross, and others involved in disaster preparedness, to determine their interest in and availability for training on accessing local and national disaster public health resources, particularly those relating to the elderly and those from the National Library of Medicine.

2) To provide culturally competent training on accessing local and national disaster medicine and public health resources, particularly those relating to the local rural geriatric population and those offered by the National Library of Medicine, for at least 250 area health professionals, first responders, librarians, and volunteers with a role in disaster response, management, and information.

3) To develop, produce, and promote resources to increase access to local and national disaster medicine and public health resources, including an ADA Section 508-compliant training video on accessing disaster resources particularly those relating to the local rural geriatric population and those developed by National Library of Medicine and a downloadable, culturally competent handout on key local and national disaster resources for seniors.

Objectives

Allegany College of Maryland Health Continuing Education Dept. Allegany County Health DepartmentEmergency Preparedness Caucus, WMAHECFrostburg State University Pre-Medical SocietyGarrett County Health DepartmentMeritus Health Medical Library and Education DepartmentSocial Work Caucus - Allegany/Garrett Counties, WMAHECSocial Work Caucus - Washington County, WMAHECWashington County Health DepartmentWestern Maryland Health System Parish Nurse and Health Minister Program 

Western Maryland Area Health Education Center Learning Resource Center in partnership with:

A little about me – Mary Spalding - Project Coordinator and Instructor/Presenter

• Medical Librarian at WMAHEC since 1999, either full-time or on contract while teaching college English;

• Oversee WMAHEC’s Learning Resource Center, Primary Access Library for the region; also serve under contract for medical librarian services for several area hospitals;

• Grantwriter, Webmaster, and PR writer for WMAHEC• Former President of Maryland Association of Health

Science Librarians• Presenter for two sessions at Medical Library

Association national meeting in 2002• Loving this project!

Western Maryland:We are green!

West Virginia

Virginia

Map from U.S. Senator for Maryland Barbara Milkulski, http://www.mikulski.senate.gov/aboutmaryland/thingstodoinmaryland.cfm

Pictures

The Appalachian Region

Actual Disasters Here – Flight 93

Photo by Val McClaskey – www.shanksvillememorial.com/endofserenity.html Photo at PennLive -

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/05/government_to_condemn_land_for.html

On 9/11, Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania--just a few miles north of our region. A friend who lives on the state line in Finzel, Maryland, felt the impact 28 miles from the actual crash.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UA93_path.svg

Actual Disasters Here

Photo from Newscom FocalPoint, 2012

According to Safe Seniors partners, many seniors isolated by the storm had no electricity for oxygen tanks or other medical devices, and local stores ran out of generators. Photo from Barry Glotfelty, a personal friend,

after a 2010 blizzard

Hurricane Sandy created blizzard conditions in Garrett County, which has some of the highest snowfall on the East Coast, leaving farm animals out in the cold.

Snow StormGovernor Martin O'Malley toured areas in Garrett County Thursday, including a visit with displaced residents at a shelter in Oakland, and a meeting with local elected and emergency management officials.

O'Malley said his chief concern is for senior citizens and people who are disabled.

Much of Garrett County is under two feet or more of snow. The most was measured at 28 inches in Red House.

I know everybody's up here waiting on generators and power," says Andy Witt. "It's bad.” (WJLA Channel 7 News,http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/10/garrett-county-gets-pounded-by-snow-storm-81574.html )

And other dangers

Photo from Maryland Department of the Environment

Severe flooding in the area is common, as is dense fog—but who would’ve thought we’d have tornadoes in the mountains? We have, quite a few times.

Oh, did I mention explosions at the ballistics factory just over the West Virginia line?

Weatherbug, June 2012; tornado was in 1998)

80-car pileup, 2 killed, May 2003; image from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://old.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030524crashreg2p2.asp

ATK Blast

Chain-reaction Crash

Potential Dangers – to name a few Railroad and Interstate accidents – injuries, loss of life, fires, chemical

spills? Earthquakes (In 2011, a 5.8 quake with epicenter in Virginia was felt in

Western Maryland) Terrorism Consequences of fracking—not yet occurring in Maryland but just above

in Pennsylvania

ABC News, May 28, 2013—This derailment was in White Marsh, Maryland, NOT in Western Maryland—but with many railroads in Western Maryland this could easily happen here

Western Maryland Area Health Education Center Lead agency for Safe Seniors –

501(c)3 non-profit Established in 1976 to provide rural

clinical education to medical students at University of Maryland School of Medicine (and other universities), with health professions caucuses plan and offer continuing education, and provide medical library services

Primary Access Library for Western Maryland Core funding from University and State of Maryland Department of Health

and Mental Hygiene supplemented by grants and contracts such as this one with National Library of Medicine

Mission: To promote quality in and access to health care through educational partnerships

Objective One To develop and conduct a needs assessment to be

disseminated to at least 100 local libraries and first responders, such as police and fire departments, Red Cross, and others involved in disaster preparedness, to determine their interest in and availability for training on accessing local and national disaster public health resources, particularly those relating to the elderly and those from the National Library of Medicine.

We sent the needs assessment to all partners in the proposal, few of whom responded, so we followed up with emails.

The survey was not sent to first response organizations because we learned early in the process that first responders’ training requirements are set by the State of Maryland and do not include “elective” courses. All licensing and license maintenance courses are medical skills based.

Thus, we had to think of another strategy to reach this audience.

More on librarians in a moment.

We created a needs assessment using Survey Monkey

Contacted the three local health departments where state-mandated quarterly disaster preparation meetings are held;

Presented at the Garrett County Health Department’s quarterly disaster management council with leaders of first response organizations in March and offered to come to their agencies to present to their employees;

Scheduled a training to be held at the Washington County Health Department in September – all first response and other disaster preparedness leaders will be invited by the Health Department.

To reach first response leaders, we …

We scheduled a non-credit course at Allegany College of Maryland to be held in September that appears in its fall calendar.

We will promote the course via local newspapers and radio stations, emphasizing its usefulness for first responders and others involved in disaster preparation and management.

Once the video (Objective 3) is complete, we will promote it heavily to first responders!

To reach EMTs and other first responders . . .

Allegany County Health Department indicated it was not interested in training or a presentation, but we hope to convince them otherwise! If not, the project coordinator will send them a list of links they may want to add to their Web site, an idea they welcomed.

We also hope to add a few more organizations to our (already quite busy) training schedule and are reaching out to those most relevant to the project.

Needs Assessment

We used a more informal means than surveying to ascertain interest; we simply used email, as we have longstanding relationships with all librarians in the region;

WMAHEC was the originator of the Consortium of Health Information Libraries Outreach (CHIL-Out) that gathered librarians in all three counties for monthly meeting for years;

For many years, WMAHEC has provided training on accessing electronic health information to area librarians and health professionals with funding from the National Library of Medicine, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and are well known in the library community for doing so.

As for librarians . . .

To provide culturally competent training on accessing local and national disaster medicine and public health resources, particularly those relating to the local rural geriatric population and those offered by the National Library of Medicine, for at least 250 area health professionals, first responders, librarians, and volunteers with a role in disaster response, management, and information.

Objective Two

Focused our time on familiarizing ourselves with DIMRC, state, and local resources;

Developed a core PowerPoint presentation to be tailored for each group to be trained; these will be made ADA Section 508 compliant and posted to our Web site;

Continued working on Objective One to locate groups interested in presentations or trainings and publicized the opportunity in local newspapers and in our WMAHEC Happenings newsletter mailed out to our listservs (12 discipline-specific caucuses, including an E-Prep Caucus, plus other health care stakeholders).

In the early months, we . . .

Trainings and Presentations to DateDate/Time Location Audience How

many?CEUs provided

2/12/20139:30-10:15 a

Garrett County Health Department,Oakland

First response and disaster preparedness leaders

19 No

3/7/20135-6 pm

Western Maryland Health System,Cumberland

Parish Nurses* 3* Nursing

3/19/20136-7 pm

Western Maryland Health System, Cumberland

WMAHEC Board of Directors

20 No

4/10/20136:15-7:15 p

Frostburg State University, Frostburg

Pre-Med Society undergraduates

23 No

4/23/201312 – 1:30 pm

Meritus Health Medical Center, Hagerstown

All Meritus and area health professionals

13 Nursing, Social Work

* The Parish Nurse coordinator sent the training PowerPoints out to 140+ nurses and ministers on her mailing list

Trainings/Presentations Held continued from previous slide

Date/Time Location Audience How many?

CEUs provided

6/25/201311-Noon

Western Maryland Health System, Cumberland

Cumberland Ministerial Board

9 No

6/25/20132-3:30 pm

Frostburg State University Lewis J. Ort Library

Academic and public librarians

18 No

7/8/201312-1:30 pm

Washington County Department of Social Services

WMAHEC Social Work Caucus

12 Social Work

7/11/20137-8 pm

Frostburg State University, Frostburg

Exploring Careers in Health Occupations

30 No

8/9/201311 - Noon

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Cumberland

Women’s Group 21 No

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church Women’s Group (Some men showed up, too!)

To date, 168 health professionals, librarians, students, parish nurses, ministers/rabbis, first response leaders, and church groups have been trained . . .

Pre/Post tests (when used) have demonstrated increased knowledge, and evaluations have been positive

And we have more trainings and presentations on the books.

Results to Date:

Scheduled Trainings and Presentations

Date/Time Location Audience How many?

CEUs provided

8/14/201312:30-2 pm

Western Maryland Health System, Cumberland

WMAHEC Social Work Caucus

Approx.24

Social Work

9/3/201311:30-Noon

Allegany County Seniors Center

Seniors Center staff and clients

Approx. 15

No

9/6/2013 Allegany College of Maryland

Faculty and staff Approx.30

No

9/10/2013 Westernport Seniors Center

Seniors Center staff and clients

Approx. 15

No

9/10/20136-7:30 pm

Allegany College of Maryland

General public – hopefully first responders

Approx. 15

No

11/11/2013 1-1:50 pm(after contract ends)

Western Maryland Regional Library Tri-County Annual Summit, Hagerstown

Public and other librarians in 3 counties

Approx.40

No

To develop, produce, and promote resources to increase access to local and national disaster medicine and public health resources, including an ADA Section 508-compliant training video on accessing disaster resources particularly those relating to the local rural geriatric population and those developed by National Library of Medicine and a downloadable, culturally competent handout on key local and national disaster resources for seniors.

Objective Three

Just starting this process but it’s going well

Tutorial will specifically address needs in Western Maryland but may also be useful for other communities, especially rural ones

Tutorial will highlight disaster resources for seniors (due to our high population in this area) and other vulnerable populations

Software: Adobe Captivate

Web host: WMAHEC Web site and/or YouTube

PowerPoint presentations for groups trained with clickable links to resources will also be posted

Working on making all Web materials ADA Section 508 compliant

Objective 3: On-line Tutorial

Downloadable, seniors-friendly directory (one page) of locally accessible disaster information and phone numbers is in progress and will be posted to our Web site when done.

Objective 3

Mary Spalding, MA, MLISWestern Maryland Area Health Education Center (AHEC)

39 Baltimore Street, Suite 201Cumberland, MD 21532301-777-9150, ext. 116

mspalding@wmahec.orgWeb site: www.wmahec.org

Thank you!

Questions?