News

In this workshop, staff from the UMass Amherst Translation Center provided an overview of considerations regarding interpreting and translation needs, tools, and best practices within a public health or healthcare setting. Specific topics covered included: Should bilingual employees in your…

Building off last spring’s Active Shooter Planning Considerations Workshop, this tabletop exercise will have attendees examine their response, recovery, and/or continuity of operations plans through the lens of responding to and recovering from a violent critical incident. While the workshop…

A commission including global health and national security leaders, and members of Congress has released a set of recommendations it believes can serve as a blueprint for improved U.S. action on global health security. “We began the Commission’s work with…

Major cities are turning to a Silicon Valley start-up to help save lives in an emergency. But some fear its promise has been dangerously exaggerated.

Imagine an Ebola epidemic is ravaging a community, or a dirty bomb goes off in a major city — but health workers can’t enter the affected area because they lack adequate respiratory protective devices (respirators) meant to protect them from…

A newly identified exploit, known as BlueKeep, is being used by unauthorized actors to gain system level access to healthcare networks via unprotected medical devices.  This exploit is similar to the Eternal Blue exploit used to spread the ransomware, WannaCry,…

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security released its 2018 annual report. The report details the center’s efforts to enhance research and analysis on major domestic and international health security issues, including emerging infectious diseases and…

Late last week, The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released its 2019-2022 National Health Security Strategy, which “provides a vision for strengthening [the] nation’s ability to prevent, detect, assess, prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from 21st…

Our fall 2018 Full Coalition meeting drew together western MA healthcare and public health stakeholders to offer disciplinary and HMCC-level updates, and partake of a program focusing on models of community paramedicine and mobile integrated health. For that main program,…

Earlier this month, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense released an updated report, "Holding the Line on Biodefense: State, Local, Tribal and Territorial Reinforcements Needed", which highlights several recommendations for how federal policy can help to render state, local,…

Jacqueline Johnson, Chief Operating Officer of Caring Health Center HMCC Steering Committee Chair

"Today, the White House and four federal departments unveiled a comprehensive National Biodefense Strategy to make America safer against modern biological threats to the United States. In the 21st century, biological threats are increasingly complex and dangerous, and that demands…

The Western MA HMCC now offers bleeding control training kits to western MA organizations to borrow, free of charge, when offering bleeding control trainings, provided the organization will not make a profit from the training. The kits, four in total,…

FRAMINGHAM, MA – Governor Charlie Baker has proclaimed September 2018 to be Emergency Preparedness Month to highlight the importance of emergency preparedness and to encourage planning for disasters and other types of emergencies. To help individuals and families prepare during Emergency Preparedness…

The Franklin Regional Council of Governments seeks a well-rounded, professional, and intelligent candidate for a 30 hr/wk grant-funded position assisting with a variety of regional emergency preparedness activities in western Massachusetts.

A leading medical institution created a simulation that shows how a new disease could kill 900 million people — and it reveals how unprepared we are.

In this opinion piece, Dr. Kadlec offers his thoughts on the re-authorization of Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), and highlights his priorities and recommendations for further legislative commitment. Dr. Robert Kadlec is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response…

Earlier this week, FEMA released Planning Considerations: Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks to aid all community partners, including all levels of government, infrastructure owners and operators, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and volunteer organizations, in planning and preparing for complex coordinated terrorist…

Ebola. MERS. Zika. Nipah virus. Lassa fever. Rift Valley fever. All were in active outbreaks in June.

The unprecedented scale, scope, and impacts of the complex combination of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria tested capabilities FEMA has developed and improved since hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Following the 2017 hurricane season, FEMA conducted an after-action review of the…

U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) has introduced the bipartisan Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (PAHPA) of 2018 to reauthorize the nation’s main law ensuring Americans are prepared to respond to public health emergencies resulting from chemical,…

Baystate Noble Hospital received the American Heart Assoc./American Stroke Assoc. Get with the Guidelines – Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, recognizing the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines…

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives wrote a joint letter June 5 to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar voicing concerns and confusion about the status of the one-year-old Healthcare Cybersecurity and…

Following the recent news that the new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reached an urban area where its spread can accelerate, congressional attention to reauthorizing the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) is timely.…

Members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on Wednesday considered proposed updates to the nation’s law on preparing for and responding to national and global public health emergencies resulting from any chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear…

Healthcare Professionals can take slight measures to aid their facilities in preparing for potential crises. Here’s how. When it comes to providing safe and effective healthcare, the formality of following algorithms and protocols is perhaps more important than in any…

Amanda Leite's daughter Nicole was running a fever while her family was shut in by Hurricane Irma. The worst of the storm was tearing through the Orlando, Fla., area on Sept. 6, 2017, when Leite's 4-year-old was sick. It sounded…

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from John Auerbach, President and CEO, of Trust for America's Health (TFAH) on the introduction of the Senate HELP Committee's Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation (PAHPAI) Act:…

The Western MA Health & Medical Coordinating Coalition participated in a tabletop exercise on April 25th testing the MA Dept. of Public Health’s new Patient Placement Coordination Plan. Following federal requirements, the Department had to practice moving at least 20% of…

A SECRET LOCATION OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, D.C. — From the outside, it looks like an ordinary commercial warehouse, only much bigger, about the size of two super Walmarts. Inside it’s dark except when motion sensors are triggered. When the lights come…

Our Full Coalition convening in the fall of 2017 was the venue in which we hosted JSI Research and Training, a contractor hired by the MA Department of Public Health to conduct regional Jurisdictional Risk Assessments in each Massachusetts HMCC…

Our April 2017 Full Coalition Meeting allowed for HMCC updates to our membership, and featured presentations from Jessica Collins, Executive Director of Partners for a Healthier Community (since renamed the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts) on “Foundations of Health Equity”, and Chad…

Our first Full Coalition Meeting was held in October of 2016 after a rigorous planning process to form the HMCC.  We had great attendance and participation as we outlined our progress thus far, and highlighted what was coming for the…