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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-09-25 Middlesex-Essex Public Health Collaborative Minutes Middlesex-Essex Public Health Collaborative Meeting Agenda Wednesday,September 25, 2024 at 10:00 am Via Video Conferencing How to join the meeting: Join via computer or smartphone: Follow this link: meet.google.com/yxpTergk-xfr Join via telephone: 507-339-5878 PIN: 185 572 572# Attendance: • Andover,Tom Carbone—Aye • North Andover, Brian LaGrasse—Aye • Reading,Ade Solarin—Absent • North Reading, Pam Merrill—Aye • Lynnfield, Coral Hope—Aye • Haverhill, Bonnie Dufresne—Absent Also In Attendance • Annette Garcia, Shared Services Coordinator • Doug Kress,Subject Mater Expert 1. Approval of 8/28/2024 Meeting Minutes Motion made to approve the mintues as presented made by Tom Carbone,seconded by Brian LaGrasse. Vote:4-0 in favor.Approved. 2. DISCUSSION:Strategic Planning—Doug Kress - Doug Kress has been assigned to our SSA as a subject matter expert(SME)to assist us with the development of an RFP for strategic planning services - Doug Kress he has many years experience in Municipal government. Was HHS director in Somerville and left just after COVID o Doug Kress has been assisting the PHE program by reviewing documentation submissions, helping with CART data and assisting with specific projects - Today we aim to: o Define who are going to be the reviewers, and who is signing off on the final products o Define who is involved in the process o Define what data we can provide o Defining timeline/funding($15,000 has been approved for this project,we would like it to be completed by the end of the third quarter) o What do you want out of the end goal - Vision, mission and core values have not been formally adopted. Does the group agree upon these ideas to move forward with them? o The Advisory Board members present agree with the vision and mission presented - What do you want the consultant to accomplish? o Conduct a SWOT analysis to ID gaps, opportunities and challenges. What already exists that could help fill in this data? ■ Mr. Carbone states that while a CART exists that provides a baseline for how well our SSA is meeting Performance Standards, it does not feel that it was a fair representation of our current capacity. For example,Andover received marks down for certain document submittals that they do not believe were accurate. ■ Mr. LaGrasse points out that with our SSA,there was a very short turn- around time for the submission of documents. Many of the communities were not able to complete the full assessment in that timeframe. o It may be worthwhile to have the consultant assist with some of the data collection ■ "The consultant will review and affirm the CART to ensure it is a complete story of the work taking place in the SSA" - What are the shared accomplishments? o IMA has been fully executed o We have three regional staff members, FT shared services coordinator, FT health inspector, PT public Health Nurse - What do we want to accomplish in the SSA? How do you define success? o Building capacity and having additional resources to meet the performance standards ■ It is hard to keep up with performance standards and support community complaints. It leaves little room for other activities like outreach,education & programs. When resources are stretched,these are the first activities to go since they are not required by statute. • Those aspects are some of the most important items that we need right now, but they are under resourced. ■ It is difficult because we are all indifferent positions. Because we have support from regional positions,we are able to expand the activities are ■ What are the outreach topics of importance in your community? • General Health and wellness • Nutrition • Mental health • Opioid use/ Narcan programs - How can we leverage the PHE group to utilize the opioid settlement funds.They're being controlled by a different entity in each community. o If all six of the communities are onboard to commit some of the money to the regional program. I think we can do that, but we need to have a roadmap of how we are going to use that and how it will be beneficial. o This has not been discussed in our SSA - What do we want the SSA to look like moving forward? o We need assistance determining how we define sustainability o Envisioned the group would be good at doing common permitting ■ We may all license the same mobile food trucks, but can we streamline this approach to reduce the number of inspections. Can we have one application so we're vetting it once while they still have to get permits in each community. ■ Improve efficiency for health departments and business ■ Summer camps may be another area for this process • Are there camps in multiple communities?Why are we reviewing the application multiple times? ■ This is part of a workplan.The Strategic plan outcome is that we have ID areas where we can build those efficiencies o The Contact Tracing Grant currently serves 4 of our 6 communities.They are funded through FY25. We would like to transition this position to the SSA ■ FT epi who works on, communicable disease tracking and assists with MAVEN investigation ■ Can we utilize the individual to look at some of the information to ID where there are potential opportunities to improve cross-jurisdictional sharing? • Yes, he currently assists with that. However, Haverhill is not part of the CTC grant group • As an epi, Henry is not able to investigate TB - Project Deliverables: o What is going to change over the next three years ■ Priorities ■ Data points ■ Working off CART ■ Are there assumptions everyone would agree upon? 0 Everyone on Relevant o We want them to ID some of these priorities and data points. - Think about who are potential consultants that you would like to send the RFP to? o Current consultants include BME Strategies, MAPC, HiRA 3. Updates from the Shared Staff a. Shared Services Coordinator i. IMA 1. The IMA has been fully executed.A copy with all signatures has been e- mailed to everyone and filed with the state. ii. Hiring 1. We're starting first round interviews for the health communications specialist position tomorrow. We have five total candidates for the first round. iii. Website 1. We should have an initial draft of the website to review in the next month or so.There were some delays on the vendors end. b. Public Health Nurse i. Has finalized flu clinic dates. If you have new dates you need assistance with, please reach out to Annette. ii. Lea Anne has scheduled a Narcan train the trainer on January 22. 1. Nurses were invited to register first. Registration link will go out to all local staff 10/1.The class can host 20 iii. Lea Anne is working to schedule a Youth Mental Health First Aid training for March iv. Lea Anne is hosting a CPR training on 9/30 for staff across four municipalities. v. A finalized MAVEN coverage SOP has been created. It is housed in the Shared Assets Drive and will be shared in our October newsletter. 4. DISCUSSION/VOTE: Chair/Co-Chairs Section 4 of the IMA States that the first meeting after an executed IMA is in place,the "Advisory Board shall organize and elect from its voting members aChair or Co-Chairs and other officers as the Advisory Board Deems appropriate." A motion is made by Coral Hope to nominate Brian LaGrasse and Coral Hope as co-chairs, seconded by Tom Carbone. Vote:4-0 in favor.Approved S. DISCUSSION: Quarterly Update a. Annette shared a presentation summary with a quarterly update. Data shared is accurate as of September 24, 2025. Final quarterly numbers will be shared on October 1 b. Main accomplishments this quarter: i. The IMA was fully executed ii. A regional inspector was hired and started iii. The region maintained 100% MAVEN coverage iv. Five of six communities met and audited FDA Standard 1 c. The regional health inspector has completed 74 inspections across the municipalities. i. This includes some large temporary events d. The public health nurse has been assisting with case investigation in Reading while they hired their public health nurse i. Over the next six weeks, she'll be assisting with 14 flu clinics, attending at least one per community e. The PHE grant has been assisting with a lot of training efforts including CPO, REHS, and CPR f. To date,we have spent just over 20%of our total funding. We are on-track to spend down funds by the end of FY i. There were a few large charges included software this quarter ii. We anticipate our salary share to increase as we are hiring an additional FT position 6. Next Meeting: October 23,Virtual • Wednesdays at 10 am continue to be a conflict. • We will try to poll for a new meeting time. Likely just shifting the time on Monday. A motion to adjourn was made by Tom Carbone, seconded by Brian LaGrasse. Vote:4-0 in favor, approved.