Emergency Response and Language Access

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Emergency Response and Language Access

• Shelly B. Rodrigues, CAE
• Deputy Executive Vice President
• California Academy of Family Physicians

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Declaration

• I declare that during the last 12 months neither
  I, nor any member of my family, have had a
  financial arrangement with any corporate entity
  providing support for this continuing medical
  education activity.

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California Academyof Family Physicians

• Largest state chapter of the American Academy of
  Family Physicians.
• 7,000 members, including 4,300 active
  practicing family physicians.
• Headquartered in San Francisco, with 13 staff
  members.
• CAFP Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) charitable and
  education foundation.
• Significant work in the areas of cultural and
  linguistic proficiency.

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Medical Leadership Council on Cultural Proficiency

• Convened by the CAFP/CAFP-F, supported by a grant
  from The California Endowment.
• First convened in 2002, now has 32 member
  organizations working to improve and enhance
  cultural and linguistic proficiency.
• County medical societies, state specialty
  societies, CMA and CMA-F, hospitals and health
  plans.
• www.medicalleadership.org

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Addressing Language Accessin Your Practice

• Curriculum developed by team led by Alice Hm
  Chen, MD, MPH.
• Developed to assist physicians and their office
  staffs in addressing the issues faced with
  limited English proficiency patients.
• Includes nuts and bolts approach.

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Addressing Language Access

• Risk assessment, patient identification, use of
  interpreters (trained, untrained, and family
  members), new technologies, payment resources,
  and more.
• CME provided

• Presented at 20 locations in California in
  2004-05, plus AAFP (today!)
• Accompanied by a Toolkit, guide to the process,
  with an additional 5 CME credits.

Both being revised now, for availability next
month. www.medicalleadership.org www.familydocs.o
rg
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Preparing Your Office and Home

• New curriculum, and monograph to assist our
  members in an assessment of disaster preparedness
  in their offices, and homes.
• Based on the experiences of our colleagues in
  Orleans Parish, Louisiana.
• A series of articles in California Family
  Physician, Academy in Action, www.familydocs.org
• Keynote speaker at 2007 Annual Scientific
  Assembly Jeffrey Runge, MD, Homeland Security.

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Business Disaster Kit

• Copies of all your organizations insurance
  records with contact names and numbers
• Log-in information for your bank accounts, credit
  card companies, etc
• Latest financial statements
• Investment records
• Payroll records, including accrued vacation and
  sick time
• Key contacts with cell phone numbers and email
  addresses

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• Checks, deposit slips, letterhead/envelopes
• Printed copy of all your email addresses from
  your computer at work/home
• Critical phone numbers, like FEMA, SBA, etc
• Copy of employment agreement/personnel manual
• One or more disposable cameras

Keep this in a waterproof folder!
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Bioterrorism and Public Health Emergency
Recognition and Response

• A partnership among the California AHEC program,
  the California Poison Control System, and CAFP
• The mission of the program is to prepare
  Californias health professionals caring for the
  states multicultural underserved to rapidly and
  effectively respond to terrorism and other public
  health emergencies
• Each of the five cal-PEN AHECs were invited to
  participate in the project to work with their
  affiliated residency programs to plan and conduct
  collaborative planning and training in their
  respective communities
• CAFP sponsored the train-the-trainer sessions,
  and provided grants to the residency program that
  participated

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Bioterrorism andEmergency Preparedness

• The four-module curriculum developed by cal-PEN
  addresses an all hazards approach in assisting
  health care professionals to
• Recognize the risks and indications of terrorist
  events or public health emergencies
• Meet the immediate care needs of patients
• Alert appropriate authorities and
• Participate in a response.
• Twenty-three California residency program sites
  participated in the project over the course of 7
  months, each site held the full program, of four
  modules on average each module had 20 attendees.
• We had a total of 2,125 participants in this
  program, 929 of whom were reported family
  physicians.
• cal-Pen website http//161.58.103.51/calpen/

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What does this have to do with you?

• Cultural/linguistic proficiency is important for
  day-to-day practice, but becomes even more so
  during times of emergency or disaster.
• Physicians need to be prepared for emergencies
  and disasters at home, in the office, and in
  the community.
• We want to know from you what is being done in
  your community, what needs you can identify in
  your community, and what role this group might
  play to ensure that we are all prepared for the
  next big one.