Through this funding opportunity San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health) will implement a public health emergency response in Bexar County which encompasses the domains below.
Strengthening Incident Management for Early Crisis Response. Metro Health stands ready to quickly respond to all-hazard public health emergencies. As part of our daily activities response plans are drafted and edited based upon the many partner meetings attended. At the onset of an initial index case in Bexar County, Metro Health maintains an executive-level Infectious Disease Core Working Group to develop specific high-level response plans and assign departmental/agency and fiscal responsibilities. At the discretion of the Core Working Group the San Antonio/Bexar County Emergency Operation Center will be activated.
Strengthening Jurisdictional Recovery- Metro Health continuously coordinates and collaborates with the many public health partner agencies that provide services to our at-risk vulnerable populations. Metro Health, in coordination with the Office of Emergency Management maintains response plan to service this population. Metro Health maintains a Vulnerable Population Registry called STEARs that allow immediate access to determine resource needs in our community during public health emergencies.
Strengthening Biosurveillance- Metro Health will monitor and report infectious diseases to the CDC and Department of State Health Services (DSHS). The department uses the Texas Syndromic Surveillance (TxS2) system to enhance surveillance of emerging public health conditions and threats. Metro Health utilizes the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) as a repository for electronic disease reporting from commercial and hospital laboratories.
Strengthening Information Management- Metro Health utilizes the state funded information sharing platforms, including Texas Red Sky, the Health Alert Network (HAN), the Texas Disaster Volunteer Registry, EM Resource and WebEOC. Locally, Metro Health provides funding to WebEOC to share information among all response partners throughout Bexar County. In addition, Metro Health utilizes the 2-1-1/3-1-1 call system, STEARs, provides disease reports to clinicians/hospital via the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council (STRAC) and the Bexar County Medical Society (BCMS), and maintain robust access to local media resources.
Strengthening Countermeasures and Mitigation- In the event of a public health emergency, Metro Health maintains a detailed Point of Dispensing (POD) Plan that conducts activities to build, maintain and administer pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions per CDC guidance. Metro Health maintains storage facilities to support these deployment activities/supplies to include the required PPE supplies.
Strengthening Surge Management- In public health emergencies, Metro Health is able to rapidly convene the Medical Volunteers Coordination Center (MVCC) to provide the needed surge capacity. Metro Health will use internal department staffing, multi-departmental City/County staffing, contractual staff via medical staffing contracts, public health partners, and medical/non-medical volunteers via the Medical Reserve Corp to manage distribution and administration of medical and non-medical countermeasures.