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HomeMy WebLinkAboutM012011JEFFERSON COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH MINUTES Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 2:30 PM — 4:30 PM Public Health Conference Room, 615 Sheridan Street, Port Townsend Board Members Staff Members Phil Johnson, vice Chair, County Commissioner District #1 Thomas Locke, MD, MPH Health Officer David Sullivan, County Commissioner, District #2 Jean Baldwin, Public Health Services Director John Austin, County Commissioner, District #3 Julia Danskin, Nursing Services Director Roberta Frissell, Citizen at large (County) Stuart Whitford, Environmental Health Services Director Kristen Nelson, Chair, Port Townsend City Council Sheila Westerman, Citizen at large (City) Chuck Russell, Hospital Commissioner, District #2 Chair Chuck Russell called the meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Health to order at 2:31 PM. A quorum was present. Members Present: Phil Johnson, David Sullivan, John Austin, Roberta Frissell, Kristen Nelson, Sheila Westerman, Chuck Russell Staff Present: Dr. Thomas Locke, Jean Baldwin, Julia Danskin, Veronica Shaw Substance Abuse Advisory Board: Frances Joswick Guests: Phillip Morley, County Administrator APPROVAL OF AGENDA Jean Baldwin asked to move Environmental Health Policy Revisions to the last item of New Business. Member Frissell moved to approve the agenda as amended; Member Sullivan seconded. The motion was approved unanimously, as amended. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A motion was made to approve the December 16, 2010 BOH meeting minutes, as written. The motion was seconded and approved unanimously. PUBLIC COMMENTS Mr. Thomas Brotherton, Quilcene, made suggestions for changes to the Quilcene Clinic. Mr. Brotherton suggested the closure of the Quilcene Clinic due to the limited number of clients served. He recommended that patients who qualify for Public Health services be provided with a voucher to use another medical clinic. Page 1 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20, 2011 OLD BUSINESS and INFORMATIONAL ITEMS February 2011 Standards for Public Health Practice Ms. Danskin informed the Board that JCPH will be completing submission of documents for the upcoming Public Health Standards review on February 15, 2011. Among the items to be reviewed will be BOH Minutes, community health assessment work, and strategic planning work. The State will be on site to review the Public Health standards on April 28, 2011. The State will send a report of their findings in August or September. Presentations to City of Port Townsend Ms. Baldwin discussed the option of continuing presentations to the City of Port Townsend with possible topics as, local source control and identification of pollutants, recycling of chemicals, and shellfish protection. Interest was expressed to continue educating the City of Port Townsend about Health Department programs; however the question was raised whether funds are available in the budget to continue the education. Ms. Baldwin responded that after discussion with the City of Port Townsend, funds are available and the City is in the process of negotiating a Regional contract. It was decided that Ms. Baldwin would contact the City regarding scheduling further presentations. MMR Vaccine Study Fraud Update Dr. Locke reviewed the latest news on the 1998 studies that alleged a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The British Medical Journal, the original publisher of these studies, now characterizes them as an "elaborate fraud". There have been several large studies since that time looking at vaccinated and unvaccinated children that show no differences in autism rates. Dr. Locke pointed out that MMR and the preservative thimerosol (used in some vaccines) have been conclusively shown not to cause Autism. Dr. Locke commented that this news item and the legislation dealing with vaccine exemption that is before the State Legislature presents an opportunity to educate the public about two key vaccine issues 1) declining vaccine exemption rates for school aged children and 2) the need for increased use of the pertussis vaccine in adolescents and adults. Washington State is seeing more pertussis (Whooping Cough) outbreaks with 2 deaths in children occurring this past year. The key to protecting young children from pertussis exposure is greater levels of vaccination in adolescents and adults, who tend to be the carriers of the disease. Page 2 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20, 2011 A member suggested that more efforts be made locally to publicize that the Wakefield study was proven to be fraud. Jefferson County BOH 2009-2010 Summary of Board Activities Ms. Baldwin briefly reviewed the Summary of the 2009 and 2010 action items for the BOH included in the packet for review. This report is an overview of the actions taken by the Board. This summary will be placed on the Jefferson County Website along with previous years. SBOH Notifiable Conditions Rule Takes Effect February 4, 2011 Dr. Locke reported that a comprehensive revision of Washington State's Notifiable Conditions rule has been enacted and takes effect soon. One of the most contentious issues in the new rule is the reporting of animal bites. In the past all animal bites had been reported to local health departments, leading to many unnecessary reports. Reporting requirements have been amended so that only animal bites that are being treated for rabies are being reported. NEW BUSINESS Election of New BOH Officers for 2011 Member Russell called for nominations to elect new Board of Health Officers. Member Russell nominated Kristen Nelson to serve as Chair. With no other nominations made, Member Russell moved to elect Kristen Nelson as Chair. Member Austin seconded the motion. The vote passed unanimously. Member Austin nominated Member Johnson as Vice Chair. With no other nominations made, Member Austin moved to elect Member Johnson as Vice Chair. Member Frissell seconded the motion. The vote passed unanimously. Member Russell announced he will be leaving the Board and his position will be filled by Jill Buhler, a fellow hospital commissioner and former Board of Health member.. Adoption of Policies and BOH Role Dr. Locke reviewed a draft of the updated Guidelines for Adoption of Policies, Procedures and Protocols which was included in the packet. A similar policy was adopted in 1988, but does not adequately address the broad range of policy, protocol, and guideline documents the JCPH is required to produce. The Board is required to adopt policies that have to do with their statutory powers and duties, including the enforcement of state and local public health codes. Administrative policies, clinical protocols and guideline documents may be of interest to the Board but generally do not require formal Board adoption. The draft policy attempts to categorize the different types of policies and standardizes their review and adoption process. Page 3 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20, 2011 Member's requested a copy of the 1988 Policy and example policies to review. Public Records Requests 2010 Volume and Time Veronica Shaw reviewed the 2010 public records request tracking sheet that was provided in the packet. She reported that in 2010 there was a total of 366 hours spent on fulfilling public record requests at a cost of about $11,000 in staff time. She stated that simple document requests provided by Environmental Health are not accounted for in this total. The tracking sheet also provides the number of documents gathered compared to the number of documents copied by request. Research time was not tracked previously, but will be tracked starting in 2011. Member Westerman raised the question, whether it would be beneficial to also track whether anything resulted from the information that was provided. A brief discussion followed. 2011 WSALPHO Legislative Agenda Dr. Locke reminded the Board that WSALPHO is the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials, a division of the Washington State Association of Counties. Dr. Lutz of the Spokane Regional Board of Health sent an e-mail to Boards of Health around the state requesting that they review the WSALPHO 2011 Legislative Agenda. Dr. Lutz noted that there is an on-going effort to facilitate communication between Boards of Health across the State. Dr. Locke responded that he sees this as a positive step toward improvement in communication between local Boards of Health. Dr. Locke reviewed the 2011 WSALPHO Legislative Agenda with the main focus on public health funding. The top priority is to retain non categorical funding. The specific non - categorical funding source being looked at is the Back Fill Funding, which was used to make up the city's share of public health funding that was lost when the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax was repealed in 1999. Continuation of this funding is in the Governor's budget, but is reduced by approximately 14%. Ms. Baldwin mentioned the HB5930 and Blue Ribbon funding, which pays for communicable disease services, has seen a cut of 22% in the past 4 years and will now see a further 15% cut in the Governors budget.. Member Austin noted that he did not see support of legislation for reduction of teen tobacco use on the agenda. Ms. Baldwin responded that this is a newer item and the issue is still alive. Ms. Joswick reported that on January 17th, Jefferson County established two drug take -back sites; one at the Jefferson County Sherriff's Office and the other at the Port Townsend Police Station. It is the Substance Abuse Advisory Board's goal to increase from two sites to four. She informed the Board that there are two Bills; HB1370 and SB5234 that would require the pharmaceutical companies to pay for the installation and maintenance of drug take -back sites. Ms. Joswick requested that the BOH write a letter in support of these two Bills. Page 4 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20, 2011 Member Austin moved to direct the Health Department to draft a letter to be signed by the Chair on both issues. Member Johnson seconded the motion. The motion was approved unanimously. Member Frissell expressed interest in showing support on the issue of an on-going effort to facilitate communication between Boards of Health across the state. Dr. Locke suggested contacting Dr. Lutz and he offered to make that contact and inquire about efforts that are underway. Ms. Baldwin announced she received a survey from the National Board of Health for the Chair to complete. Ms. Baldwin offered herself and Dr. Locke to do a first draft of the survey for the Chair's review. Environmental Health Policy Revisions: Food Safety Program Mr. Whitford presented four Environmental Health policies to be brought before the Board for approval: Mobile Food Service Establishments, Waiver from a Temporary Food Establishment Permit, Food Establishment Inspection Frequency and Destruction of Hazardous Foods. Susan Porto, Environmental Health Specialist, presented a summary of each policy. She referred to the four policies, provided in the packet. The Mobile Food Service Establishment policy reiterates that the establishment must be readily moveable within a matter of hours, it must retain its wheels, and has defined menu items. The Waiver from a Temporary Food Establishment Permit states that a temporary food permit expires at the end of the calendar year. The Food Establishment Inspection Frequency policy will allow for a reduced number of inspections on food establishments, when a risk assessment justified this reduced inspection frequency. The Destruction of Potentially Hazardous Foods policy establishes a process for the destruction of hazardous foods that are found during an inspection. She reiterated that all the policies are designed to promote consistency in the performance of staff duties. A brief question and answer period followed Ms. Porto's presentation. Member Austin made a motion for the Chair to approve all four documents. Member Westerman seconded the motion. The motion was approved unanimously. ACTIVITY UPDATE Region 2 Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Statewide Exercise: January 25-27, 2011 Ms. Danskin reported that there will be an emergency preparedness exercise taking place January 25-27, 2011 at Jefferson County Public Health, which will trigger the communicable disease team to go in to an investigation. Also participating in the drill is Jefferson Health Care, their lab and Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management (DEM), Kitsap County Health District and Clallam County Health Department and both counties DEMs. Page 5 of 7 BOH Minutes .lanuary 20, 2011 AGENDA PLANNING CALENDAR Board of Health Meeting Calendar for 2011 The Next scheduled BOH meeting will be held Thursday, February 17, 2011 from 2:30-4:30 PM at the Department of Public Health, 615 Sheridan Street, Port Townsend, WA. Ms. Baldwin stated that she will include 3 examples of the Policies, Administrative Codes and Procedures, along with a copy of the 1988 Policy in February's packet. It was requested that there be further information at next month's meeting on the Quilcene Clinic. Ms. Baldwin said she would bring the statistics on the Quilcene Clinic. Member Westerman moved to have a letter written in support of the legislation addressing the vaccine exemption problem. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. Dr. Locke stated he will be meeting with our legislative delegation on January 20 and he will notify them that the Board voted in favor of supporting the vaccine exemption and The Drug Take Back programs and will follow up with written letters. Ms. Baldwin agreed to follow up on the press releases regarding the Wakefield MMR Vaccine fraud. Ms. Baldwin announced that February 24, 2011 is a Data Steering Committee meeting. More information from the Data Steering Committee can be found on the Jefferson County Website, www.ieffersoncountypublichealth.org ADJOURNMENT Chair Nelson adjourned the BOH meeting at 4:17 PM. Page 6 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20, 2011 JEFFE ON COUNT BOARD OF HEALTH Chuck,,Russell Kristen Nelson, Chair, Roberta Frissell, Member 14, Q� Sheila Westerman, Member 1 Phil d , Vice -Chair John; ustin, Member 'In David Sullivan, Member Page 7 of 7 BOH Minutes January 20.201 1