USA Prepare and East Central Health District Begin Program to Train Public Health Employees and Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers

USA Prepare (a division of MC Strategies, Inc.) announced today the deployment of a Public Health Virtual University (PHVU) in cooperation with the East Central Health District (ECHD), Advanced Practice Center located in Augusta, GA. The program will train public health employees and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers in standardized procedures for operating in mass casualty incidents such as a bio-terrorist attack or a pandemic disease like the avian flu.

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) March 19, 2005 -- USA Prepare (a division of MC Strategies, Inc.) announced today the deployment of a Public Health Virtual University (PHVU) in cooperation with the East Central Health District (ECHD), Advanced Practice Center located in Augusta, GA. The program will train public health employees and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers in standardized procedures for operating in mass casualty incidents such as a bio-terrorist attack or a pandemic disease like the avian flu.

The Public Health Virtual University was created to provide standardized training across multiple disciplines, institutions, agencies and communities for public health employees, Citizen Corps and Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers via the Internet. In addition to e-learning, students will receive classroom instruction conducted by ECHD trainers and third party training conducted by agencies such as the Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control and Department of Homeland Security.

PHVU will utilize a proven Web-based e-learning program -- now operating in over 1,500 healthcare facilities, 60 colleges and universities and over 50 of the major healthcare systems in the US.

The Public Health Virtual University will certainly enhance our ability to serve our community in a mass casualty incident," said Dr. Frank Rumph, Director of the East Central Health District (ECHD), Advanced Practice Center.

Dr. Rumph also remarked that he believes the program will improve training effectiveness, streamline competency assessment, and reduce training expense by as much as 60 percent.

The partnership between PHVU and ECHD will result in a system that assesses individual training needs, assigns learning to individuals based on their job and unique needs and monitors their progress against a specific learning plan. The system manages learning modules, classroom assignments, instructors and other training resources that are needed to fully train public health employees in disaster preparedness.

The Public Health Virtual University will provide for online registration of Medical Reserve Corps volunteers and manage their progress in developing skills and competencies and in implementing community preparedness plans. The current training status and competency certification of all volunteers will be readily accessible for management and reporting and as a resource evaluation tool should it become necessary to deploy Volunteers for an emergency.

Prospective volunteers will link from the local public health website to online volunteer applications for acceptance as a Citizen/Medical Reserve Corps Volunteer. Each selected Volunteer will receive a development plan based on their qualifications and role. Program coordinators will monitor their progress in successfully completing the required training, and will have critical information on credentials and readiness of the Corp, in a crisis situation. This will help to ensure that qualified volunteers are effectively assigned to critical tasks in the event of a disaster.

About ECHD
East Central Health District is an agency aligned with GEMA Region 3 that supports public health and emergency preparedness for nineteen (19) counties in east Georgia including the Augusta MSA.

About USA Prepare
USA Prepare is a division of MC Strategies, a longtime, preeminent provider of Web-based education to the healthcare industry. With over 1,300 healthcare facilities as clients, MC Strategies has a proven track record of quality service unequaled in the industry. USA Prepare builds on this history of e-learning excellence by creating a unique approach to disaster preparedness training.

This project was produced for the East Central Health District Advanced Practice Center and supported by Cooperative Agreement Number U 50/CCU302718 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC or NACCHO.

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