Five College Town/College Emergency Dispensing Site Working Group

Five College Town/College Emergency Dispensing Site Working Group
Meeting Summary

Members Present:
Amherst Board of Health:
Amherst College: Richard Mears
Amherst Emergency Manager:
Amherst Fire:
Amherst Health Department: Epi Bodhi, Julie Federman
Amherst Police: Bob O'Connor
Amherst Regional Public Schools: David Slovin
Five Colleges Incorporated: Donna Baron
Hampshire College: Karen Kalmakis
Hampshire Public Health Coalition: Mary Kersell
Hampshire Regional Emergency Planning:
Quabbin Health District: Judy Metcalf
University of Massachusetts Amherst: Ann Becker, Bob Laford
Town of Sunderland: Wendy Houle
Town of Shutesbury: William Elliott Date: May 8, 2007
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Place: Five Colleges, Inc.

TOPIC DISCUSSION ACTION
Report from the Communication Planning Sub-Committee Mary Kersell reported on the recommendations of the Communication Plan Sub-Committee to create a simple redundant communication plan for the Five Colleges and surrounding towns for health related issues and incidents:

1) Set up a Five College/Town group on the HHAN system for communication regarding health related issues and incidents

2) The group for now will include Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges and UMass and Five Colleges, Inc and Amherst, Belchertown, Hadley, Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury, Sunderland, South Hadley, Granby and Northampton.

3) Roles represented in the Five College/Town HHAN group:
i) For the Colleges:
(a) Public Health/Health Services
(b) Environmental Health and Safety
(c) Public Safety
(d) Emergency Manager
ii) For the Towns (depending on what each Town decides):
(a) Board of Health Point of Contacts
(b) Emergency Manager
(c) Backups to those positions since they are often part-time in the towns.

4) We would like to test this group on the HHAN in early July.
Mary and Wendy will continue to collect contact info from the Towns and will draft a memo that can go to the towns explaining the purpose of the communication system and confirming which roles we have added to the group.

After Mary can give Donna all the contact data, she will create a database for us to store the information for when we are ready to develop a redundant system – like a listserv.

Mary and Donna will check in with Ben Wood regarding Shelburne Dispatch and will make sure that we do not include Shelburne Dispatch in any of the contact info for Franklin County towns.
EDS Sites Epi Bodhi shared that town of Amherst would like to think through the EDS sites in a comprehensive manner that takes into account staging and education, prophylaxis, sheltering, and medical sheltering. It became clear to the group that it will be extremely helpful to have the town’s Emergency Manager (Mike Zlogar) attend a few of these sessions so we can take the EDS site conversation to the next level. Donna and Bob O’Connor will follow up with Mike and possibly the Town Manager, Larry Shaffer to see if we can get additional town representation on this committee.
Next Meeting May 22nd at 10:00 at Five Colleges