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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH August 25, 2005 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Anne Miles Cassell 2 August 25, 2005 Fee Approval for Personal Health was approved by consensus. V. Reports and Discussion with Possible Action A. Strategic Planning The Health Department has been working on elements of a strategic plan to cover the period 2005-2010. Based on input from the Board, staff has worked on developing or revising the internal focus areas portion of the strategic plan. The revised drafts were distributed for Board review along with a revised Table of Contents. Workforce Development area of the plan was extensively re-worked. Rosemary Summers invited comments and suggestions from the Board on the internal focus areas. The goal of the department is to have a well-developed audit system in place for every program. Alan Rimer suggested the addition of Board member who has experience in a particular field be included in the Quality Assurance and Risk Management oversight or audit committee because there is a great amount of expertise on the Board. Alan Rimer made the point and Board members agreed that Technology Development and Support was an extremely important issue that has been ignored for too long, The importance of being able to quickly access patient records and medical data from a common database and improved communication technology during an outbreak was stressed, along with the increased productivity benefits this would provide. Sharon Van Horn suggested the use of the recent UNC meningitis outbreaks or a possible avian flu outbreak to illustrate the need for these improvements. Overall capacity: Wayne Sherman noted that the 2004 utilization data was forthcoming and was not included as part of the Workforce Development study. Based on the available information the department’s staffing needs are not keeping pace with the growth of the county. We do not have capacity for anything other than the basics. Alan Rimer suggested the use of a table or graph to give a visual on the staff ratio to the growth number in the county. Training and Development: The question was raised of whether there is a source within the public health field for computer based training via the web that could be done at a pace convenient to workforce schedules. The department does have access to UNC School of Public Health and some of the homeland security training required with a national incident management system is online. Some of the ones the department would like to see developed on-line are county required training, especially for new employees. Cultural Competency: Wayne Sherman reported that the goal of having a workforce that was capable and competent of serving individuals in a multicultural and changing community was close to being accomplished. Department is leading of the county in accomplishing this goal. Facilities and Space: Alan Rimer commented that it would be useful to make the point if there was a way to relate what our existing space needs are and relate that to the number of patients