The Maine Bureau of Health’s (BOH) Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP) is the lead state agency responsible for the planning, coordination, and response to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies.
OPHEP is staffed by a team of public health professionals. We work collaboratively with other agencies and organizations across Maine to achieve our mission: “The Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness protects the health and lives of people in Maine by strengthening the ability of health agencies and partner organizations to detect, contain and manage public health threats and emergencies.”
The OPHEP and its partners are developing a statewide plan for a public health response to public health threats and emergencies, including bioterrorism (BT). Developing Maine’s public health and health care infrastructure for early identification of and appropriate response to public health events is our priority. We use our ongoing evaluation process is helping to monitor progress for and identify areas needing improvement.
For more information or to view a power point presentation on our ongoing evaluation of Maine public health preparedness APHA BTeval.11.03.ppt or contact Anne Keith at (207) 780-4138 or email her at AKeith@usm.maine.edu.
The Bureau of Health has partnered with Maine’s three Trauma Centers to create three Regional Resource Centers (RRC) to develop regional health care system response plans for public health emergencies. Maine trauma centers are: Maine Medical Center in Portland, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Each RRC is creating regional plans in collaboration with all other health agencies in their region, including hospitals, EMS, health centers, home health agencies, long term care centers and public health. These regional health system response plans will assure that health care agencies work in a coordinated fashion to mobilize health care resources in response to any public health emergency. In order to improve capacity for regional preparedness, RRCs support early detection, enhanced communication infrastructure, and health professional training.
For more information contact:
Central Maine Regional Resource Center
Carolyn Reilly,
Director of Emergency Preparedness
Central Maine Medical Center
(207) 795-2960 (voice)
(207) 795-2959 (fax)
creilly@cmhc.org
Eastern Maine Regional Resource Center
Kathy Knight,
Director, Center for Emergency Preparedness
Eastern Maine Medical Center
(207) 973-8008 (voice)
(207) 973-7849 (fax)
kknight@emh.org
Southern Maine Regional Resource Center
Steven Trockman,
Director, Southern Maine Regional Resource Center
Maine Medical Center
(207) 662-5140 (voice)
trocks@mmc.org
Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness
Tom Patenaude,
Hospital Bioterrorism Coordinator
Maine Bureau of Health
207-287-3288 (voice)
207-287-9058 (fax)
thomas.patenaude@maine.gov
SNS- The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) Program, formerly known as the Pharmaceutical National Stockpile, was established in 1999 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The mission of the SNS Program is to deliver pharmaceuticals and other medical materiel to the site of a large-scale emergency as rapidly and effectively as possible. During the past 2 years, the Muskie School of Public Service, working within a Cooperative Agreement with the Maine Bureau of Health, Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, has been engaged in a series of tasks to develop a comprehensive SNS Plan. Michael Edwards and Diane Friese of the Muskie School have coordinated the planning project.
This agreement has been completed and since the beginning of November, 2004 Jackie Roberson has been orientating to her new position as SNS Coordinator and working closely with both Michael and Diane to complete this transition.
Currently, the SNS Program is focusing upon planning a statewide, comprehensive and coordinated system that will deploy a defined set of pharmaceuticals for use in Public Health emergencies in advance of any such emergency.
These pharmaceuticals will include nerve agent antidotes, antibiotics, and other selected agents for use 1) in initial treatment of victims of an intentional or accidental exposure to chemical or biological agents and 2) for the prophylactic treatment of health care workers and their immediate family members in the event of a public health emergency in which treatment is needed. These pharmaceutical assets will include drugs from what has been known as the Maine Pharmaceutical Cache and will include drugs from the ChemPack program and taken together will be known as the Medical Emergency Distribution System (MEDS) of Maine Program.
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