Recipe for Emergency Preparedness: The Most Important Ingredient is People, and Always Will Be…

This column was scheduled for posting in September during National Preparedness Month. This is an annual, national observance to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies that could happen at any time. But then, COVID hit my household for the first time. It was a humbling experience of failed personal preparedness. Early in the pandemic, I created a small stockpile of over-the-counter symptom relievers, electrolyte drinks, and a couple of finger pulse oximeters. Over the last few years, those supplies were separated and pushed back further and further into my linen closet. When I did find them while experiencing a nasty fever, muscle aches, severe fatigue, and loss of taste and smell, many had expired. So much for best laid personal preparedness plans!

My day job, however, is community preparedness. The Health Emergency Response Office (HERO) has the following 3-part mission:

• Ensure health incidents and emergencies affecting the University community are addressed in a timely, efficient, and effective manner utilizing resources and expertise available both internal and external to the University.
• Coordinate and organize health sciences personnel to assist campus and community partners during local, state, or national health emergencies, and in so doing, provide unique educational and experiential opportunities for students, staff, and faculty.
• Ensure incident response efforts impacting the clinical and health science research enterprises are well informed and coordinated to minimize disruption to essential operations.

Although supplies can sometimes be important at the community preparedness level, the most essential ingredient on our campuses and in our communities are people. We need people who are ready to step in at a moment’s notice, now and into the future. HERO’s work in this area includes the following:

Ensuring Readiness Now

Our largest program is the University of Minnesota Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), one of the oldest and largest MRCs in the nation. The COVID pandemic highlighted the need for people-powered surge capacity. As described in our special report, MRC members provided 22,904 hours of service through 32 deployments, both on our campuses and in the community. Although I witnessed this important work every day, I am in awe of the sheer magnitude of the service provided by health sciences students, staff, and faculty. 

Ensuring Readiness in the Future

The HERO team is also investing in building a public health emergency preparedness workforce by offering courses at the graduate and undergraduate level:

• NEW THIS YEAR, Graduate Level Online Course: HERO has partnered with the School of Public Health to offer “Emergency Preparedness: A Public Health Perspective (PUBH 6232)” to graduate students in the health sciences during the fall semester. The course offers an introduction to the history and core competencies of public health emergency preparedness, from risk assessment to crisis communications, to legal foundations and improvement planning through drills and exercises. The course also showcases real life examples from the field, which includes outbreaks and pandemics like measles and COVID, but also human-caused mass fatality events, weather-related disasters & climate change, and disaster mental and behavioral health response. 
• Undergraduate Honors Seminar: Now in its eighth year, HERO partners with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) to offer a fall semester Honors Seminar called “Battling the Bugs: Anthrax, Ebola, and Everyday Life (HSEM 2707H).” With half of the seats held for incoming freshmen, this seminar is often the first time students have heard about public health practice. Course content includes a review of high-visibility outbreaks from the past, fictitious scenarios, and routine public health efforts behind the scenes rarely seen by the general public. Content about the anthrax attacks following September 11, 2001, is of particularly of interest to our students as no undergraduate students personally remembers 2001, and the deliberate distribution of anthrax spores.
• Undergraduate Public Health Course: HERO also partners with CIDRAP to offer a spring course now in its fourth year. Using the highly successful curriculum from the fall honors seminar, this course reaches a larger audience of students, most of which are upper classmen. Students from this course, as well as the fall course, are given the opportunity to join the U of M Medical Reserve Corps after successful course completion. These undergraduate students have become some of our most active members. 

Within the HERO team, we often talk about how lucky we are to work with such amazing people. Our MRC members step up when we need them, every single time. The students we meet make us feel hopeful for the future; we learn as much from them as they do from us. During my recent COVID illness, my colleagues took over for me on several fronts. When Boynton Health needed assistance during the pandemic to meet campus needs for testing and vaccination, MRC members were there. When existing public health leaders move on to other pursuits, our students will be ready to take the reins. It’s a tried-and-true recipe for preparedness and the HERO team is happy to play a small part in the kitchen.