Contact: Ellen Bank
843.792.2626
Oct. 15, 2003
CHARLESTON, SC —The South Carolina Area Health Education
Consortium (AHEC) received a $2.1 million grant to train the state’s health
care workforce to respond to bioterrorism incidents and public emergencies.
Program principal investigator David Garr, M.D., said that the two-year grant
from the Health Resources and Services Administration will educate health care
workers in smaller sectors and rural practices.
“There are already two major grants in South Carolina devoted to public
health and hospital preparedness in the event of a bioterrorist attack,”
he said, “but our program aims to educate community health centers and
private practices—what we call ‘first contact’ awareness.”
South Carolina’s four regional AHECs—Greenville, Lancaster, Florence,
and Varnville—will administer the statewide project. MUSC hosts the program
office and also serves as the administrative hub for the project, with many
of the university’s faculty members acting as advisors, consultants, or
trainers.
“We want to draw from the faculty’s expertise to design an appropriate
training program for other health care professionals,” said Beth Kennedy,
the AHEC project director.
A variety of discipline-specific workshops provide a key element of the training
program. For example, if a dentist encounters a patient who exhibits an unusual
hypersecretion of saliva or rapid tooth decay following a bioterrorism scare,
the patient’s overall health may have been affected, and public health
may be at risk.
The program’s workshops will teach health care professionals how to manage
these discipline-specific concerns.
AHEC and MUSC’s College of Health Professions cooperated in designing
a Web site to distribute information statewide. According to Kennedy, the site
will contain educational materials, online courses, and self-tests for interested
professionals.
“The Web site is a great interactive tool because it provides valuable
information to health care workers who are too busy to attend our workshops,”
she said.
The site includes links to each of MUSC’s five colleges, detailing which
faculty members are involved in the training program.
Similarly, the project plans to install a videoconferencing system among the
four regional AHECs. Garr explained that videoconferences help in the instance
of a guest speaker’s visit to one of the regions; each administrative
hub could share a live feed of the speaker, keeping everyone current on training
information.
Finally, the consortium plans to schedule emergency drills and “table-top
sessions” to test the preparedness of each region.
In an emergency drill, health care workers confront a simulated catastrophe
that requires them to mobilize to a certain area, assess the situation, and
take the necessary precautions with regard to victim care and safety measures.
A table-top session allows health care professionals to take a mental walkthrough
of a public emergency. Selected trainees meet to discuss a theoretical incident
and to outline how their training has influenced their decision-making.
The two exercises will determine the effectiveness of the training program,
as the consortium analyzes and tweaks any problem areas.
Although much of the project focuses on bioterrorism, AHEC wants to prepare
health care professionals to manage any situation that where public health is
at risk, including train wrecks, public bombings, and natural disasters.
The consortium also included social and mental health professionals in the training
program, because the aftermath of a public emergency can be just as devastating
as the event itself. Although these professionals may be trained to help victims
deal with the stress and swirl of emotions that follow a traumatic event, social
and mental health workers rarely see such occurrences on an epidemic scale.
Although the project teaches community health centers to manage the physical,
emotional, and psychological effects of a bioterrorist attack or public emergency,
AHEC also spreads general awareness.
About half of the South Carolina’s medical residency programs operate
in conjunction with the Area Health Education Consortium.
“I think the grant affords people the opportunity to learn more about
South Carolina’s Area Health Education Consortium,” Garr said. “The South Carolina AHEC has trained health care professionals in our state for more than 30 years, and this project will permit us to continue this important work.”
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