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For the past year, five students who comprise a Technology Clinic team have worked with the Allentown and Bethlehem Health Bureaus to put together a comprehensive health preparedness plan for the two cities.
The team will make its final recommendations to its clients 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 2 in Van Wickle Hall, room 108.
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.
Over the weekend of April 14-15, the team ran a drill at the East Side Youth Center in Allentown using the computer model. Approximately 200 volunteers came in to receive fake inoculations for a simulated Bird Flu pandemic. Using the data they compiled, the students will present a revised plan taking into consideration issues like personnel to staff the PODs, suitable paperwork, staff training programs, and proper procedures.
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.