COVID-19 Virtual Conversations: Emergency Readiness

Please join the New York Academy of Medicine for COVID-19 Virtual Conversations, a virtual series of conversations for NYAM Fellows, Members, and the public to engage in an interactive session to discuss the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The next conversation, moderated by Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP (Senior Scholar in Residence, NYAM) and Allison Squires, PhD, FAAN, RN (Associate Professor, NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing), will focus on the topic of emergency readiness, recovery and response. The science of safety and response is critical to how we will care for current patients, heal our communities from the pandemic, and prepare for a possible resurgence of the virus in the fall and winter months.  Health care professionals at all levels will be setting the stage for success, and this conversation is an opportunity to share what we’ve seen, what we’ve learned, and what we need to know as we move into the future.

Arthur Cooper, MD, MS (Harlem Hospital) and Michael Frogel, MD, FAAP (National Pediatric Disaster Coalition and New York City Pediatric Disaster Coalition) will set the stage for the conversation with a brief presentation about emergency preparedness, after which participants will separate into breakout rooms for twenty minutes to discuss in the context of two specific topics:

Responding and Recovering from Emergencies: How we can prepare aging populations (led by Lindsay Goldman, LMSW)

• How can we frame emergency preparedness within an overarching goal of increasing community resilience and improving future health and wellbeing outcomes for older people?
• What resources and actions are required to prevent increased morbidity and mortality among older people living in both the community and institutional facilities during disasters?

Training our Workforce for Emergencies: Preparing, Responding, and Recovering (led by Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC)

• What professional emergency preparedness training have you received, and how often?  Was this training useful in the context of an actual emergency?
• What types of emergencies have you encountered, and were you prepared?  What did you encounter during that emergency that was unexpected?  

Participants will then regroup to report back on what the main takeaways from the breakout sessions were, followed by a discussion of how we can apply them to our work and to the advancement of health equity.