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Government wants to improve bioterrorism response for health workers

Emergency Management Alert, March 29, 2004

Congress wants the nation's bioterrorism experts to increase the preparedness level of healthcare workers, Newswire reports.

Experts say vaccines, drugs, diagnostic devices, and medical surveillance isn't enough to fight bioterrorism. As a result, the Association of Academic Health Centers (AHC), a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to education and leadership of health professionals, will collaborate with Michael Hopmeier, a counterterrorism expert, to operate the Healthcare Incentivization Working Group (HIWG). The new group will work with academic health centers and public health systems to defray the costs of preparedness training for the workforce and assist healthcare's delivery system in preparing for disasters and responding to homeland security issues.

"For too many academic health centers, biodefense activities constitute an unfunded mandate," says Roger J. Bulger, MD, president of the AHC.
Joining HIWG in this effort is the National Center for Emergency Preparedness, housed at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center, an AHC member institution.

"Hospitals and other institutions need to participate in planning and exercise activities so that their people and the community as a whole understand and can carry out those plans. Academic health centers represent an incredibly flexible and robust resource in every state, so identifying financial incentives for these institutions is critically important," says Colleen Conway-Welch, PhD, Dean of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing and Director of the International Nursing Coalition for Mass Casualty Education. Conway-Welch serves on the federal Council on Public Health Preparedness.

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