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Facility consolidates information flous and expert access.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has prepared for a serious health event-including a biological attack-anywhere in the United States by building a multimedia command center in its Washington, D.C., headquarters. This facility serves both to present all the necessary information to a decision maker and to establish vital communications links to emergency responders even during a devastating public health event such as a pandemic or a bioterrorism event.
The department comprises a host of health-oriented organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. These and many other organizations all fall under the direct supervision of the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the command center serves as his central point of information. The secretary is the focal person in the center-all of the briefing material for a particular incident is available at his desk, and he is able to conduct videoconferencing from that station.
This command center also serves to help department officials remain informed and make key decisions during a range of potential crises or events that may require HHS involvement. During last year's Hurricane Isabel, for example, department officials in the command center used the same hurricane models employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. However, instead of focusing just on storm tracks, the department used the models to project how many people might require emergency assistance during and after the storm.
Most of the personnel staffing the center are public health services officers. Some positions, such as meteorology and geospatial information systems, represent full-time staffed disciplines. In many cases, staffers are multidisciplinary, including dual-master's personnel.
While a small crew works during off hours late at night, the center can accommodate 26 people at individual workstations when preparedness or homeland security threat levels rise. And, the composition of these staffers varies with the situation. The crew during a hurricane would be vastly different in specialization from that required to cover a potential biohazard event, for example.
Not all of these personnel are department officials. Federal partner agencies and departments may be represented, as may nongovernmental organizations such as the American Association of Blood Banks. These personnel...