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Last week, Technology Clinic presented the findings of its year-long project on emergency preparedness to the Allentown and Bethlehem Health Bureaus.
Tech Clinic is a hands-on course founded in 1986 that brings together students from different majors to help solve the real-world problems of a business, non-profit organization, or government body.
Team members include: English major Abra Berkowitz ’09 (Sharon, Mass.), mechanical engineering major Emily Egge ’08(Annandale, N.J.), computer science major Roger Ellis ’07 (Brooklyn, N.Y.), art major Emily Gillespie ’07 (Hammonton, N.J.), and chemical engineering major Briana Hecht ’08 (Chestnut Hill, Mass.). Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology, and Lawrence Malinconico, associate professor of geology and environmental geoscience, are the team’s faculty mentors.
Over the weekend of April 14-15, the team ran a drill at the East Side Youth Center in Allentown using a computer model. Approximately 200 volunteers came in to receive fake inoculations for a simulated Bird Flu pandemic. The drill helped the students finalize their plan, which took into consideration issues such as personnel, suitable paperwork, staff training programs, and proper procedures.
Vicky Kistler, acting director of the Allentown Health Bureau, says the clinic’s drill brought up many issues that the bureau had not thought of previously. She believes the team’s work is a good beginning and the bureau is currently putting together and after action report.
“This really let us know how much work we need to do,” she says.
The student’s priority has been to develop, model, and drill points of distribution (POD), or venues for the dispensing of medical supplies in response to a public health emergency. PODs are not triage centers, but rather places where healthy people can go to receive preventative care in the event of a widespread health crisis.
Using a geographic information system (GIS) and a software package called SimProcess, the team linked information such as population density, estimated timing, resources, and possible obstacles, to come up with potential POD locations, procedures to distribute medication, and a plan to get people to the POD.
According to Berkowitz, one of the most important aspects of the project is it is reproducible. She stresses that other health organizations besides their current clients will also be able to learn from the plan.
“There are many other area health bureaus that need to initiate these programs,” she says.
As an English major, Berkowitz says when she first found out that this year’s clinic was focused on the bird flu, she was a little wary.
“I wasn’t really aware of emergency preparedness because I don’t think many people take it into consideration on a daily basis,” she says. “But I realized how important of an issue it is and that it is something that is happening right now.”
Not only have the students learned the importance of the topic, but they have also gained essential skills that they can take into a professional environment.
Hecht, who plans to attend medical school after graduation, believes the clinic was especially pertinent for her future.
“One thing that helped me was learning about the health aspect of emergency preparedness,” she says. “Tech Clinic is unique because it’s a different kind of course – a combination of an extracurricular activity and a class – and everyone had different things they contributed.”
Egge agrees that the clinic’s multidisciplinary aspect greatly contributes to the learning environment.
“Working with students from all different backgrounds was a key component. I would never have met some of these people if not for the course,” she says. “It’s a real world project, not just something you would find in a text book.”