Volunteering at an Emergency
Point-of-Dispensing Clinic

In the event of a bioterror attack or pandemic flu, local governments plan to run Point-of-Dispensing Clinics to inoculate citizens against disease.

The problem: Clinics will need to be set up almost overnight, and will be staffed by volunteers. How – and when – will those volunteers get trained?

Our client, a government agency in a large city, asked Prometheus to help. They needed to be able to get up to 35 clinics running within a 24-hour time period, all staffed by volunteers.

This was a tricky one. The Clinics require a lot of volunteers, for a wide variety of jobs. For example, there will be doctors and nurses, but also security people, clerks, cooks, inventory control people, managers, etc. So this training has to be flexible. But it has to work well, and it has to work fast. It has to be scalable. Training has to be consistent from one Clinic to the next. The same person who is in charge of “staffing” will be in charge of “training,”-- which means they won’t have time to be conducting a lot of classes.

Our solution was a blended one:

Orientation Training.

• We created an online module, using Articulate software.
• The module features lots of graphics as well as an audio track, to suit a wide variety of learning styles.
• The module is designed to do double-duty, as a group presentation or a self-study tutorial. Clinics can set up a monitor and run the module on continuous play. They can have an instructor present the program in a classroom. They can even send volunteers a url and ask them to complete the module before coming to the Clinic.
• The module covers all of the general information that volunteers need to know. For example, they learn how to protect themselves from infection, how patients will flow through the clinic, and what their role is in the Incident Command System.  For job-specific training, the online module points to the print Job Action Sheets (see below).
• The module contains lots of interactivity. Common scenarios and problems are presented, so learners get a chance to apply their general knowledge to the kinds of issues they can expect to deal with in a Clinic.

Job Action Sheets

• Job-specific training has to be complete, accurate, and consistent from one Clinic to the next. To accomplish this, we drew from the detailed, job-by-job action sheets that had been drawn up by our client.
• Consistent Job Action Sheets were created for each job in the clinic. These sheets provided bullet point instructions on how to clock in and out, what tasks to perform during a shift, and how to perform each assigned task.
• The Job Action Sheets were to be deployed by area supervisors. For example, a Nursing Supervisor would be tasked with meeting with all incoming Nursing Volunteers, reviewing their Job Action Sheets, answering questions, and showing them their work stations and supplies.
• Volunteers would be tasked with reviewing each item on the Job Action Sheet at the start and end of each shift.

Threat Specific Training Template

• Hopefully, this training would never need to be used. But realistically, our client needed a plan that could work one year for a pandemic flu attack, and then again many years later for something like an anthrax attack.
• Our program was built for easy updating. The Online Module was built around information and skills that were not going to change. The Job Action Sheets could easily be updated if the Clinic Plan changed. We also created a threat-specific training template, which could be used to describe the threat at hand and explain how volunteers should protect themselves against it. We developed an example, based on Anthrax, which illustrated how to complete the template for any given threat.

Special Skills/Software

• Instructional Design
• Organizational Development/Human Performance Improvement
• Articulate Software
• MicroSoft Word

Our client had a robust, flexible program that could be rolled out at a moment’s notice. That gave them the wherewithal to get clinics staffed and in the business of dispensing life-saving medicines, within 24 hours of call-up.

Volunteers in the clinics had clear, consistent, credible information about how to conduct themselves, do their jobs, and stay safe in a clinic environment.

General Public had an emergency response plan that was workable, and that potentially could save lives.

The program has been well-received by planning agencies. Similar programs are being planned for other local civil defense agencies.

For more information about this project, please contact us.