HMCC Meeting Notes – November 10 planning meeting

Welcome, intros, agenda review

Emergency response exercise

Attendees were divided into 5 groups to discuss reactions to the emergency response exercise. A number of common themes came up from the discussions.

Common themes:

  • Staffing – not having enough, not getting them to where they need to be
  • Mid and Long term plans are the major issue and large town/small town
  • Defined role of each discipline in responding
  • Large number of BOHs, training – incident command system, accountability, communication
  • Communication – who to contact, who’s in charge, consistent messaging
  • Self-sufficiency vs. asking for help
  • Local vs regional response

HMCC and Governing Body structures (decisions)

Representation (discussion and feedback)

Summary, action steps

Evaluation, closing

HMCC role

  • Prevention
  • Education and training
  • What public needs
  • What is already known, what are gaps, how do we fill those specific gaps
  • Collecting space for agencies and committees, etc. (centralizing what is already in place from emergency responders)
  • Forum for getting people to the table to discuss mid and long term plans, coordination piece, dissemination
  • Advocating (communication types, etc)
  • List of potential roles

Possible Structure

Organizational - Multiple different ideas regarding committees on top of staffing and governing board

What groups would do: series of functions for governing board

Possible tasks for committees

Possible ad hoc committees

Questions:

  • County groups are response recovery groups? County groups exclusively working with response or other things?
  • Clarification on possible committees
  • Is this establishing separate body that REPCs already do?
  • How is this being worked on with REPC?
  • List of acronyms needed – Tracy will bring copies each planning meeting
  • Split into small groups to discuss questions – want to focus on structural question only – other things that come up, make a note on it right now

The attendees were broken into 7 groups to discus 4 potential organizational options. The groups were asked to respond to the following questions:

1) What are your reactions to proposed structures? And 2), How well does the proposed structure support HMCC purpose and functions?

Groups

1. Group 1 liked the county level response/recovery committees. They thought it was logistically better – easier for local 5 disciplines. They also proposed each sub-committee have one member on the governing board whose role is coordination. It was important to maintain relationships that cross county boards. County-based subcommittees could also be flexible if they needed to invite people from outside the county.

2. Group 2 recommended separate planning and training/exercising committees. A response/recovery committee might be just extra meetings. There is a need to streamline and not create more meetings. Local level work should not be duplicated (the work of the REPCs, PHEPS, etc.)

3. Group 3 focused on the governing group which should be highly represented of all groups (beyond the 5 that are required). Committees should be split between planning, training and exercise. There is a need for a local entity. The group brought up the burnout issue with the potential of having the same people involved in each committee, board, etc.The local/county-wide feed into sub-committees not the governing board.

4. Response/recovery being on local level – county level for response – engage more stakeholders. Mixed response: some wanted training/exercise and planning together, others wanted it separated. Include ad hoc committees.

5. Separate training and planning committees, but like multi-disciplinary groups (county) – planning, training and exercise, recovery and response (county level), ad hoc

6. Best integration was the three committees but separated out by County – drawing from all existing groups

7. Like the option with the 4 counties having their committee. Lended itself more to first layer of emergency response

Committee Options

  • The group discussed planning and training/exercising, and whether those should be separate committees. It was agreed that it was not the most critical thing whether they would be separate, although it could potentially add more meetings. At least start with the idea of 2 separate committees and make sure there is good communication between the two committees.
  • The group agreed that response needs to be at the local/county level. The response committee should also be a conduit for information to planning and training/exercising committees.
  • There are currently different structures within each county(REPC and LEPC, PHEP, county EMS groups). Each county will have to work out what their HMCC structure looks like.
  • One option was for the Governing Board to give the structure of the committees to the counties, and allow the counties figure out how to form a committee.
  • Another suggestion was to expand the Public Health Emergency Planningcoalitions to make HMCC groups without creating another entity.
  • At governing level it was suggested there be 5 representatives from each county (from each discipline) to take away from silos – these could be almost like County caucuses. It was noted that 20 people on the Board may be a lot.
  • A question was raised about the governing board as to whether it is actually a governing board or advisory board. The planning group will have to consider this going forward.
  • One attendee noted that the public health contingent needs to have a stronger voice and was concerned that public health will have lesser voice (along with community health centers and long-term care).

Governing Board Discussion

Givens: All disciplines have to represented; No weighted representation by money

The attendees were asked to provide ideas on how the Governing Board should be represented based on the above givens that have to be taken into account:

  • At least 1 representative from each county should be on the Board
  • One representative from discipline, population, geography
  • There should be a non-voting chair except in the cases of a tie
  • Each discipline has representative from large and small county – possibly still recognizing county difference
  • A question was asked as to whether the size of governing board would become unmanageable
  • There should be representatives from sub-committees and from other (discipline, county, Foodbank, public safety, MEMA, etc.). Some of these could be on committees, not Governing Board
  • Different level representatives (community health centers vs BOH)
  • Disciplines themselves could elect people to the governing body