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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBOH minutes 111998MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 19, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 1 November 19, 1998 ORANGE COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT MISSION STATEMENT: To enhance the quality of life, promote the health, and preserve the environment for all people in the Orange County community. THE ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH MET ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1998 AT WHITTED BUILDING, HEALTH DEPARTMENT CONFERENCE ROOM, HILLSBOROUGH, NORTH CAROLINA. BOARD OF HEALTH MEMBERS PRESENT: Timothy J. Ives, Melvin Hurston, Barry Adler, Jonathan Klein, Brenda Crowder-Gaines, Richard Marinshaw, Beverly Foster, Janet Southerland, Ron Cammarata BOARD OF HEALTH MEMBERS ABSENT: Margaret Brown, Barbara Chavious STAFF PRESENT: Rosemary Summers, Health Director; Ron Holdway, Environmental Health Division Director; Eileen Kugler, Personal Health Division Director; Cornelia Ramsey, Health Education; Patsy Bateman, Administrative Assistant; Leigh McFalls, Personal Health; Cathy York, Personal Health GUESTS PRESENT: Andrea Hodshon, Stacey Sondecker, Student Nurses @ UNC-Chapel Hill I. CALL TO ORDER AND INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS Dr. Ives called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. Rosemary Summers introduced the staff and guests present. II. ACTION ITEMS - CONSENT A. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (October 22, 1998) There were no additions, deletions nor amendments to the minutes of the September 24, 1998 meeting. The motion to approve the October 22, 1998 minutes was made by Mel Hurston, seconded by Janet Southerland and carried without dissent. B. APPROVE RECEIPT OF ADDITIONAL BCCP FUNDS The Board of Health approved receipt of additional BCCP Funds. The motion to approve receipt of additional BCCP Funds was made by Mel Hurston, seconded by Barry Adler and carried without dissent. C. ADOPTION OF 1999 BOARD MEETING SCHEDULE The Board of Health approved the adoption of the 1999 Board Meeting Schedule. The motion to adopt the 1999 Board Meeting Schedule was made by Mel Hurston, seconded by Barry Adler and carried without dissent. III. ACTION ITEMS - DECISION A. WTMP PROPOSAL At the Board’s request, a work group was formed to discuss details of the WTMP expansion proposal. The group met three times. The expansion has three major components: education, homeowner incentives and re-inspections. MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 19, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 2 November 19, 1998 The ad-hoc WTMP Expansion Committee met at the Southern Human Services Center on September 30, 1998 to forge details for the proposal. The most difficult aspect of the proposal is to define how often the gravity flow systems should be inspected. The committee debated extensively whether to set the review frequency at 3 or five years. It was finally decided that 5 years would be a more reasonable approach. It is important to remember that expansion will require a commitment to significant resources, especially personnel, in the coming years, if re-inspections are part of the framework. Other issues included the Water and Sewer Boundary Task Force Document and space for housing personnel. The committee reached no agreement on whether a security plan was necessary for all systems, which method would be better or how any plan would be implemented. The county attorney will provide guidance on this matter before plans are finalized. The motion to accept the Watershed Outward Option (Option 3) for entering into the program to develop an educational plan in the first year in order to target high-risk areas; and Hybrid Funding Option as the preferred option was made by Beverly Foster, seconded by Brenda Crowder-Gaines and carried without dissent. B. ITEMS FOR BOCC GOALS Healthy Carolinians The commissioner goals included in the Board of Health packet are the current goals that have been adopted. Revisions to these goals were handed out at the Board meeting. The first one is the Healthy Carolinians goal that previously has been labeled as human service involvement. This proposes to change this to “Healthy Carolinians of Orange County” as the goal title. The wording has changed somewhat in the goal section to include the development of a coordinated agency approach to meeting human service needs. Since July 1998, the two Health Educators working in the coordination and implementation of the activities have put in 250 hours of overtime in addition to their other duties. Dr. Klein asked how Orange County compares to other counties as far as the number of health educators. That data is still in the process of being gathered for counties that are of comparable size. Durham has 21 health educators. Included in the Board packet is a chart listing the new milestones for Healthy Carolinians. This includes a direct request to the Commissioners to consider staffing for the Healthy Carolinians effort. Public Health Emergency Preparedness Plan This is a re-drafted goal. The original goal says that this was originally created at the June 2, 1997 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, where the Health Director was asked to establish this as a goal. The plan prior to this time has been to hire consultants to prepare this plan. All the literature says that the staff must be intimately involved in the development of emergency plans for the plans to be effective, therefore the approach to accomplishing this goal has changed. The staff has formed an “EPI Team” to plan for responses to outbreak and disaster situations. The team has already developed a list of response scenarios based on actual Orange County situations. MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 19, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 3 November 19, 1998 The critical factor in sending this forward is the request for staff resources, on the last page. Given current staffing resources we would be stretched to respond to outbreak situations. It is anticipated that the Health Department would need to have at least one additional staff member that would be responsible for investigating potential outbreak situations, contact tracing and other field investigative work. We currently have one communicable disease nurse that does that in addition to other duties. The second staff addition needed is someone who can produce educational materials, plan educational sessions with providers, other team members and county staff, and develop communications. This position would also be responsible for dealing with the media, producing newsletters (communicable disease and departmental), etc. Orange County Health Department Strategic Service Plan for 2000-2005 These are areas that need an increased focus in the next five years. Greater attention should be given to addressing Orange County specific health priorities and those are clear in the Healthy Carolinians material. Given the lack of interest of private dental providers in providing services for the Medicaid population, the health department will need to increase dental health services in both locations. An increase in voluntary programs in food service consultation and inspections is needed. The proposed expansion of the WTMP program is also a significant new effort. An additional new focus anticipated in the environmental area is on air quality monitoring and assessment, especially indoor air quality. The State Health Director has a focus on asthma prevention that will be a significant effort from the State level. School health nurses report that they are also seeing more asthma-related problems. The last area needing development is adequate surveillance systems and database resources. Wastewater Treatment Management Program (WTMP) The goal is to develop a program that assists homeowners in maximizing the life of on-site conventional wastewater treatment systems, thereby protecting the environment and the health of the public. There are approximately 617 alternative systems and 2,000 pump conventional systems currently permitted in Orange County. There are another 75 systems permitted by the State. The alternative systems make up a small percentage of the on-site wastewater treatment systems prevalent in the county. Septic tanks are present in approximately 20,000 households in the county, with about 500 new systems permitted each year. There is increasing concern in the public arena over the potential failure of conventional (septic tanks) septic systems. While in some areas this is a serious problem due to unsuitable soils, in many cases, failing systems can be attributed to improper use of maintenance of the system itself. Environmental Health staff developed a draft proposal to expand the current WTMP to include conventional septic systems. The objective of the WTMP is to establish a monitoring and maintenance assurance program which meets or exceeds minimum state and local health and environmental rules and regulations. Assuming approval by the BOCC, a timeline for starting the program would be further developed. Board members voiced concern regarding the presentation of four goals to the Board of County Commissioners. The concern is that having four would cause the Commissioners to possibly do away with one or two. At least two of the goals are not new, they are ongoing goals. It is not clear as to whether or not the Commissioners are looking for new goals or looking for more fully developed current goals. MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 19, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 4 November 19, 1998 The Board of Health ranked the goals in the following order: ♦ Healthy Carolinians ♦ Wastewater Treatment Management Program (WTMP) ♦ Public Health Emergency Preparedness Plan ♦ Orange County Health Department Strategic Service Plan for 2000-2005 The motion to forward Healthy Carolinians and WTMP to the BOCC for adoption and funding of adequate positions; to support the BOCC goal for emergency responsiveness; and to communicate that a Strategic Service Plan will be developed for future submission was made by Jonathan Klein, seconded by Janet Southerland and carried without dissent. C. BOARD ELECTIONS The Board held annual elections for the Chair and Vice-Chair positions. There was some discussion regarding the responsibilities/roles of the two positions. Tim Ives was voted in and installed as the Chair and Brenda Crowder-Gaines was voted in and installed as the Vice-Chair. D. CONTRACT WITH UNC SCHOOL OF DENTISTRY FOR DENTAL RESIDENT SERVICES The Board of Health approved the contract for presentation to the Board of County Commissioners. The motion to approve the contract with UNC School of Dentistry for Dental Resident services and forward it to the Board of County Commissioners for approval was made by Brenda Crowder-Gaines, seconded by Janet Southerland and carried without dissent. IV. REPORTS A. PREVALENCE OF SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES Eileen Kugler, Personal Health Division Director presented detailed statistics on the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in Orange County. B. CHILDREN’S CLINICAL SERVICES UPDATE More information has been gathered as requested. Zip code data on patients shows that the majority of patients in Health Check (Medicaid) are from the Hillsborough zip code. Our non- Health Check patients are also from the Hillsborough area. The non-Health Check group is unknown regarding insurance and financial status. The assumption is that a large portion of them are qualified for N.C. Health Choice. The clinic survey was developed as a one-page survey. The survey to date shows that the community likes the clinic services and come to the clinic because of convenience and care. The cost estimates are not finished; this work is in progress. The breakfast meeting for providers scheduled on November 5th did not happen due to a low response. Individual meetings with providers are being scheduled. Final data will be provided at the Board of Health meeting in January. C. SAVOR THE ATMOSPHERE CAMPAIGN The logo for the tobacco campaign was handed out. The slogan is “Savor the Atmosphere of Orange County.” This logo will be used for the dining guide and for window stickers for restaurants. MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 19, 1998 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by Patsy L. Bateman 5 November 19, 1998 V. HEALTH DIRECTOR’S REPORT A. ERCD This has been delayed on the Commissioner’s agenda until December 1, 1998. B. 1999-2000 BUDGET PROCESS New position requests are due January 4, 1999. The Board of County Commissioners will meet on 4/21/99, 4/26/99 and 5/11/99 for budget work sessions. Board members should note these dates on their calendars for possible attendance. C. PENDING WORK 1. Cardiovascular Health Prevention Funding Beverly Foster, Rosemary Summers, and Cornelia Ramsey attended a videoconference on the application process. Wake County will be the lead county for this region with the CBPH counties supporting their application. 2. Adverse Public Health Condition The Adverse Public Health Condition has been scheduled for discussion at a future Board of Health meeting. 3. Smoking Rules The Smoking Rules Amendment will be on the Board of Health agenda for January 28, 1999. 4. Conflict of Interest Policy Dr. Summers is still gathering information from various partners regarding conflict of interest policies. No Board of Health conflict of interest policy has been found in N.C. 5. County Comparison Data Dr. Summers asked the State for help with that. The state is still in the process of gathering data. VI. ADJOURN A motion was made by Brenda Crowder-Gaines and seconded by Ron Cammarata to adjourn the meeting at 10:30 p.m. The next regular Board of Health meeting will be held on January 28, 1999 at the Southern Human Services Center Conference Room in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Respectfully submitted, Rosemary L. Summers, MPH, DrPH Health Director Secretary to the Board RLS:plb