Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies: 2021 Annual Report (2022)
Chapter: Meetings
Meetings
March 2, 2021
This forum meeting was planned as a virtual event to accommodate the health and safety measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Members received briefings from the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense report on the Apollo Program for Biodefense and from the Good Health Pass Collaborative exploring how to effectively create digital (health or other) data IDs in a secure and safe way. Finally, a forum member provided an update on the National Disaster Medical System Research Pilot and members discussed potential future activities and workshops, including but not limited to a webinar series on crisis standards of care and a workshop on the future of the public health emergency preparedness and response enterprise.
June 23, 2021
Forum members met virtually to discuss current and future public and private efforts and needs related to the medical product supply chain, including the National Academies’ Committee on Security of America’s Medical Product Supply Chain and the proposed Medical Product Supply Chain Action Collaborative. In addition, White House staff and other government officials briefed the forum on the Biden administration’s current medical and pandemic resilience initiatives and other existing opportunities to build a better and more sustainable public health supply chain. Finally, a forum member provided an overview of the lessons learned from “super rural” fire districts and how they ran successful COVID-19 vaccination clinics in Colorado.
October 13, 2021
The forum met virtually and was briefed on a recently published model for hospital surge capacity scoring and its potential application to national health care preparedness and assessing national pandemic and other mass casualty preparedness. Forum members also explored and discussed ideas for potential future areas of focus including (1) developing a comprehensive and inclusive national preparedness plan for the nation’s blood supply, (2) reviewing lessons learned from COVID-19 in the context of the Stafford Act and Public Health Emergency Declaration language, and (3) mental health and resiliency, workplace violence, and the future of work.
