Orange County NC Website
Colleen Bridger said she did not know. <br /> Commissioner Pelissier said she recalled that most cases were at one particular school. <br /> Colleen Bridger said most cases were probably at the Emerson Waldorf School, which <br /> has a high percentage of unvaccinated children. She said many people were vaccinated after <br /> this outbreak. <br /> Paul Chelminski said these children are not out of the woods yet, as there is a potential <br /> fatal reactivation of measles that can occur decades later. <br /> Commissioner Price asked if the health department approaches the school to make <br /> contact with parents when there is knowledge of a child with an illness. <br /> Colleen Bridger said each situation is different. She said contact is made with the <br /> school to get the immunization records of each child that came in contact with the affected <br /> person. She said contact is made with the parents of any unimmunized child. <br /> She said a letter is also sent to each classroom, as well as bus riders, afterschool <br /> programs and church groups. She said it is quite a complicated process. <br /> Commissioner Price asked which staff members do that work. <br /> Colleen Bridger said this is primarily done by nurses, sometimes paired with staff <br /> persons. <br /> Commissioner Gordon arrived at 5:58. <br /> Colleen Bridger noted that the Orange County Health Department was given an award <br /> for the best outbreak response. <br /> Colleen Bridger said decisions of the Health Department are data driven and multi- <br /> faceted. She said dashboards have been created for each of the board's three priorities — <br /> access to care, substance abuse and mental health, and childhood obesity. She said this will <br /> allow tracking of progress in each of these areas. <br /> She said the Health Department is also developing management dashboards internally <br /> for different departments, such as billing and appointments. <br /> She said the Patagonia rollout is moving forward. She said the current focus is on the <br /> electronic medical record piece. She said this is helping the department take better care of <br /> patients and make better decisions about the allocation of resources. <br /> She said Public Health has an annual THield" trip centered on Outreach and <br /> Education, and students from the school of Public Health are brought to Hillsborough. She <br /> said this year's group had 45 students, and staff worked hard to help them understand real <br /> world Public Health. <br /> Colleen Bridger said videos have been created to tell the story of the Health <br /> Department. She showed a video created by staff. <br /> She showed a second video created by high school students in response to a peer <br /> education program supported by Health Department grant funds. She said the purpose of this <br /> was to improve HPV vaccinations among students. <br /> She said, as a result of this campaign, there were 24 students who received the first of <br /> a series of three vaccinations. She said half of these were male. <br /> She passed out fliers regarding drug drop off boxes. <br /> 3. Board of Health's Strategic Plan Progress <br /> Matthew Kelm reviewed the following slides: <br />