Organizations such as Meals on Wheels, PeaPod, Express Scripts, and home healthcare agencies provide food, medical supplies, and other essential services to elderly populations and those unable to leave their homes on daily basis. As part of their medical countermeasure (MCM) planning efforts, some local health departments have leveraged these home service provider agencies to reach populations that may not be able to travel to points of dispensing (PODs) or medication clinics to get medications during public health emergencies.
To better inform an upcoming CDC pilot study examining the use of Meals on Wheels to dispense medical countermeasures, NACCHO and the CDC are interested in hearing more about the work that has already been done by health departments that have partnered with home service provider agencies as part of their mass medication dispensing planning.
Health departments interested in sharing their story should contact Raymond Puerini by sending a brief description of their health department’s MCM planning work with home service provider agencies to [email protected] or by calling him at 202-507-4257. The information provided may ultimately help shape the development of a toolkit that can be used by health departments across the country to engage home service provider agencies in medical countermeasure planning.
