Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Emergency Management Conference Held at GU

The fourth annual Advancing and Redefining Communities for Emergency Management conference was held at the Georgetown this year, marking the first time the university has played host to the event.

The conference, titled “Redefining Communities and Bringing Partners Together,” was organized in collaboration with the Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center and sponsored by the School of Nursing and Health Studies and marked the first time the university has held the event.

Conference Manager Brinda Venkatesh stressed the importance of the NHS sponsorship, citing the pivotal role that nurses often play in emergency management.

“I think down the road, there could be something we could do with NHS that involves an emergency management certificate program to kind of fine tune that specific facet of nursing and practice,”Venkatesh said. “It’s really to bring together all of the key players in the field together and to create this platform for people to come in and network and strengthen their partnerships in order to tackle some of today’s emergency management’s biggest issues.”

The three-day conference included panel discussions about Hurricane Sandy and the health needs of the homeless during disasters as well as a speaker series featuring professors from Georgetown and National Defense University along with representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Edward Gabriel gave the keynote address Monday morning, in which he addressed the importance of building community resilience across public and private sectors.

“We like to think of ourselves in the healthcare world as separate from the emergency response world, but we’re not,” Gabriel said.

Gabriel stressed the need for emergency management to harness the technological capabilities of the private sector in order to increase response efficiency.

“If a credit card company [has the bandwidth] to contact you within an hour to say that you were in two places at once … we need to be using some of these same protocols and processes at the national level,” Gabriel said.

Monday’s panel discussion addressed a similar theme and emphasized the importance of cross-sector engagement.

National Disaster Interfaiths Network President Peter Gudaitis encouraged traditional and nontraditional players such as neighborhood groups to work together in disaster response.

“[After Hurricane Sandy], the traditional players had barely dusted off their manuals two weeks later,”Gudaitis said.

University of Delaware post-doctoral researcher Kimberly Gill agreed and stressed the need for a variety of participants in disaster response, including the Department of Education, teachers and businesses.

“In public health, we often see ourselves as the red-headed stepchildren of emergency response,” Gill said.

National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health Communications Manager Liz Brasingtonsaid that the conference was a great opportunity to broaden her knowledge of public health.

“I really enjoyed the panel on community resilience,” Brasington said. “There were so many interesting perspectives on approaching resiliency from difference angles.”

The conference will conclude with a workshop called “Incorporating Homeless Populations into Disaster Preparedness, Planning and Response” Wednesday.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that this conference could lead to funding for the Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs already funds VEMEC. 

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