Tools of the Trade

Case Study Injects

Tools of the Trade – Stakeholders 1

You realize that there will be a number of key steps involved in carrying out your Board’s directive. First and foremost, you need to get a handle on all the players that will be involved, because you are pretty sure that not everyone is on the same page. Some will be enthusiastic about this new assignment, some will not be.

Tools of the Trade – Stakeholders 2

You will also have to think about key individuals and organizations in the community. You are hoping that some basic tools are available to help you with these important first steps.

Tools of the Trade – Community Engagement 1

You have now identified a key set of partners to form the group that helps guide decision making and policy setting at the community level in the coming months. The group has members from different parts of the County, from multiple disciplines and vocations (e.g., education, health, business, parent groups), and from multiple organizations with differing organizational cultures (e.g., governmental public health; private sector medicine; schools). The prospective member all seem eager to be part of the group, and to appreciate the seriousness of the H1N1 challenge facing the community. Based on your past experience, however, you realize how difficult it can be to engage and maintain the involvement of the members of such a disparate group, and to foster a sense of group cohesion over many weeks and months. And you know in advance it simply will not be feasible to have regular face-to-face meetings with the whole group.

Tools of the Trade – Community Engagement 2

You decide to meet with your immediate staff—including some of your more “tech-savvy” colleagues—to discuss what tools and technologies might help promote member involvement and foster group cohesion among the newly-formed H1N1 communities leaders group.• Based on guidance provided during the preceding

session—What kind of collaborative group is this? Advisory Committee? Commission? Consortium/Alliance? Network? Task Force?

• What tools might you use to foster collaboration among this disparate group?

Tools of the Trade – How to Run a Meeting

Now that you feel that you have a pretty good handle on who the key stakeholders are, where they are coming from, and how to mobilize support for this assignment, you realize that you will immediately have to put this analysis to the test.  Your next step will be to call a meeting of your key staff in the health department to go over the assignment from the board.  You are thinking that it sure would be helpful if there were some basic tools about how to run an effective meeting.

Tools of the Trade – Public Speaking

You have now oriented your staff to the nature of the assignment from the Board of Health, and you’ve had several virtual meetings with the larger community group you assembled to keep them informed, to advise them of guidance documents currently in development from CDC, and so forth. Several weeks have gone by, and the Board has asked you to meet with them to give a briefing on what you have learned about the H1N1 threat—How serious is it, what can we expect to see in Azalea County, who is most at risk, when can we expect vaccine etc. etc. You’ll have 15 minutes to do the briefing, and then a 10‑minute Q&A period with Board members. The press will be in the room (since it’s a public meeting), but the Q&A will be limited to Board members on this occasion.

You sigh to yourself. “Terrific. I get to do yet another PowerPoint presentation.”

Tools of the Trade – On-Line Resources 1

Your briefing of the Board of Health went very well (Great eye contact! Nice organization! Clear SOCO! Helpful visual aids!). It went very well, that is, right up until the part where you mentioned that pregnant women were to be considered a high priority group for early vaccination against H1N1.

Mrs. Doubtfire, one of the citizen Board members, is currently six months pregnant. She rushes to be the first to ask you a question—and she appears a bit worked up about something. “Thanks for the briefing, but you should know that I, for one, have no intention of getting a vaccination against this swine flu.” She continues, her voice rising, with members of the press eagerly taking notes and snapping photos, “I heard on TV that the vaccine can harm the developing fetus, and I refuse to do anything that might harm my baby! I don’t think any pregnant woman should get this vaccine!”

Tools of the Trade – On-Line Resources 2

You try to be reassuring, mentioning that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is the authoritative body behind the recommendations, but Mrs. Doubtfire only responds, “I don’t know anyone on that Committee, and the federal government has assured us swine flu vaccines were safe in the past—and they’ve been wrong!”

The energy in the room rapidly increases, until one of the Board members wisely intervenes saying, “Perhaps it would be helpful if we asked the health department to research the evidence regarding vaccine safety for pregnant women and other, and let’s hold another briefing—say, in one week?” You are glad to agree to this, if for no other reason than to put an end to this unproductive turn of events.

But now you’re back in your office—and you need to begin your research. You wonder, “Where should I begin? Maybe I should search Google for ‘vaccine safety’…”.

Tools of the Trade – Table Top Exercise

You have done a good analysis of the key players who will have to be on board to make this assignment work and you have successfully conveyed information about the project to key folks.  You’ve also allayed the technical concerns your Board has raised about patient safety.  Now you have to get much more specific about the content of the assignment – the tabletop exercise and engaging key officials in policy development.  You need to understand how tabletop exercises work, how they are designed, conducted and evaluated.  Time to find some tools to help you with these tasks.

Tools of the Trade – Broadcast Updates

In researching the vaccine safety question, it became clear how rapidly events are moving—with almost daily updates about the epidemiologic and clinical aspects of novel H1N1 disease, about vaccine production, antiviral medication availability, community mitigation measures, and other guidance. Not only that, but ever since the “pregnancy and vaccine safety” issue was raised, your phone has been ringing off the hook, with requests from the public, school officials, and the media for more information and more information. Finally, the very success of your tabletop exercise—in identifying myriad policy gaps and ambiguities that need to be addressed—has added to your need to receive and share information very efficiently.

You wish you had more effective tools at your disposal than just e-mail, your agency web site, and your telephone…

Tools of the Trade – Engage the Media 1

Several weeks have gone by, and the situation regarding H1N1 in Azalea County has escalated rapidly. The number of verified cases has accelerated in the County, just as it has across the country. Fortunately, the disease remains no more serious than regular seasonal flu—which of course, still means it’s relatively serious. As with last Spring, most cases are among relatively young adults and children, relatively few of whom need serious medical attention or hospitalization. Your Twitter account is helping you keep up with fast moving events, and you wonder how you ever did without it.

Tools of the Trade – Engage the Media 2

Then, about 12:30 pm on a Friday, you receive this ‘tweet’ on your cell phone: Azalea Reg'l Med and Cardiac Center reports 1st death - 24 yo male h/o diabetes - also, female infant admitted to NICU -critical condition. Within a short time, this information becomes widely known, and by late afternoon many people in the community are reportedly upset and wondering what it may mean for their families’ safety. You anticipated such a reaction, however, so immediately after receiving your ‘tweet’ you began arrangements for a press conference, which will be held that day in time to be covered by the local evening news.

Tools of the Trade – Press Conference

The situation regarding H1N1 in Azalea County has escalated rapidly.  The number of verified cases has accelerated and you have just received word from the Azalea Regional Medical and Cardiac Center that there has been one death - a 5-year-old child - and there is another baby in the NICU.  Of course, this has leaked out to the press and there is a need for you to address these mounting concerns by calling a press conference this afternoon.