In Appreciation of the Wonderful Guest Speakers in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

As the semester draws to a close, as well as the academic year, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the wonderful guest speakers in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this semester. In a class such as this, the students learn a tremendous amount from practitioners and, even more so, given their immense challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On February 18, 2021, we had the honor of hearing from Mr. Tim Pitoniak, who is a Regional Disaster Program Officer for the American Red Cross (ARC) in Massachusetts. Mr. Pitoniak spent the first 10 years of his Red Cross career in Greater New York where his focus was staffing, training, and partnerships. He assumed his position in Massachusetts in 2015 and has been the job director for multiple large operations, including the 2018 Lawrence gas explosion. He has regularly been deployed to national jobs, working in leadership roles for disasters all over the continental U.S.  and Puerto Rico. Mr. Pitoniak shared with us the challenges the Red Cross has faced in the pandemic and how it has been able to provide certain support services virtually, because of the need for social distancing. The students were amazed by the number of volunteers associated with the ARC and also how they are constantly adapting to provide a wide range of services, and not only to disaster victims.

On March 2, 2021, we were honored to have Dr. George Karagiannis Zoom in all the way from Athens, Greece for his guest lecture. Dr. Karagiannis is Greece's Deputy Secretary-General for Civil Protection, the US equivalent of Deputy FEMA Administrator. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Technical Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Center, where his area of expertise revolved around emergency management, critical infrastructure protection, and hybrid threats. Prior to joining the Joint Research Center, he was a Disaster Management Consultant. The title of his guest lecture was, "Humanitarian Needs Assessment & Information Management."  So many of the insights provided by Dr. Karagiannis resonated with the students, including his emphasis on the use of technology and even AI for needs assessment. And he also told the class that, despite what you see on TV and in the movies, one rarely gains much information from helicopter rides over disaster areas. Additional information and discussion during his great talk can be found on my blogpost here.

I am delighted that Dr. Karagiannis has accepted our invitation to be a plenary speaker at the next Dynamics of Disasters conference that I am, again, co-organizing with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, but this time it will be virtual. More information can be accessed here with additional information being posted in the coming weeks.

On March 11, 2021, the students and I were thrilled to have Ms, Dawn Brantley present to the class. She is the Assistant Director for Planning and Preparedness for MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) and was responsible for establishing  a program of COVID Isolation Hotels, which was also the topic of her presentation. The subtitle of it (and this spoke volumes) was: "building a plane while you fly it." Her presentation was absolutely mesmerizing. The initiative was made operational in 7 days and the logistics behind it were incredible, with so many issues such as food provision, laundry services, nursing care, and so much more needed. And to accomplish so much with attention having to be paid to COVID protocols. It was not easy getting certain hotels "on board," especially with some local communities not being supportive.

The dedication of Ms. Brantley to this important enterprise and that of her team were truly inspiring! The ARC had also been assisting in this endeavor so there was some nice synergy with Mr. Pitoniak's guest lecture. March 11, 2021, the day of Ms. Brantley's presentation,  was  the one year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the COVID-19 pandemic!

I cannot thank all the speakers sufficiently - they were fighting the pandemic on the front lines and still made time to help in the education of students.  They left a lasting impact and were part of a transformative educational experience. Each was presented with a special letter that I wrote as well as a certificate signed by our great Dean Anne P. Massey in appreciation.

On March 23, 2021, we had the Nursing Director Team from Cooley Dickinson Hospital present to my class. The title of the panel presentation was,  "Cooley Dickinson Hospital: A Year of COVID: Readiness, Response and Resilience." There were 8 speakers who shared with us their incredible work in transforming parts of the hospital to be able to handle more COVID patients and how personnel were retrained and needed PPEs acquired. 

No healthcare worker contracted COVID, which is, frankly, remarkable and such a relief. I wrote an earlier blogpost on the nursing team and sent my thank you letter to the Interim Director of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Dr. Brown, who responded so quickly. Some of the lessons learned included the importance of communications and appreciating the workers' fatigue and challenges.

The team also shared a video with us and there was not a dry eye in the audience. I would like to, again, thank the incredible panelists: Angela Belmont, VP, Patient Care Services & Chief Nursing Officer, Lynn M. Grondin, Director of Nursing for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Mike Netta, Director of Operations for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Alexandra Penzias, Director of Nursing and Professional Practice Education, Sara C. McKeown, Nurse Director, Emergency Department, Ann LeBrun, Nursing Director, Critical Care Services, Margaret-Ann Azzaro, Director, Medical Surgical & Childbirth Services, Jacquelyn Ouellette, Director, Behavioral Unit.

On March 30, we had our very "own" Mr. Jeff Hescock join us. Mr. Hescock is the Executive Director of EH&S and Emergency Management at UMass Amherst. The students have been receiving many messages from Mr. Hescock since the pandemic was declared and he, along with his staff and Ms. Ann Becker, have been behind our outstanding COVID-19 testing and now vaccinations! On the day that he spoke, Mr. Hescock told us that UMass Amherst had by then done 400,000 COVID tests and 16,000 vaccinations! He emphasized the important role of testing, contact tracing, and also isolation quarters at UMass Amherst as well as the role of our nursing students in testing and vaccinations. It has been an extraordinary team effort and the students, the community at large, the faculty, and staff are so grateful for the outstanding work of Mr. Hescock and his team in keeping us safe.

The students, as well as I, learned so much from our guest speakers and each left an indelible impression on us. 

Emergency Management in Healthcare

I am thoroughly enjoying teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this semester at the Isenberg School of Management. The students are always willing to discuss and share their experiences and the time goes by much too quickly.

A very important feature of this class is the guest speakers that I bring in who are expert practitioners.

Mr. Thomas Lynch spoke on Emergency Management in Healthcare to my recently. (Since February 9 was a snow day at UMass and the university was closed, we are grateful that he was able to reschedule his talk for February 16.) He spent about two decades working in security and emergency management at Baystate Health in Springfield, Massachusetts, and, before that,  about 10 years working in security at Mount Sinai in Manhattan. He was a terrific Professor for a Day! He even brought multiple handouts for the student.

Baystate Health is a major trauma center in Massachusetts and Mr. Lynch shared with the students the importance of drilling, drilling, and drilling. When there was smoke next to an operating room, where a surgery was taking place, the medical team was prepared and had practiced and moved the patient (who was opened up) to another surgical unit where the surgery was successfully completed.

He provided the class with information on a hazard and vulnerability assessment tool for events that a hospital such as Baystate must be concerned about from hurricanes to snowfalls and now even tornadoes, since we had one in June 2011, as well as floods and droughts, along with the estimated probabilities and risk measurement.

There have been plans made that are derived from the hazards and vulnerability assessment for such incidents as: mass casualty, fire, weather events, hazmat (internal and external), bioterror, infant abduction (which worried him the most), evacuation, active shooter, a civil disturbance, and an IT outage.

He also shared with us that, after Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history,  each hospital must prepare an emergency sustainability plan for 96 hours. This means that a hospital should be reliable/functional for 96 hours post a disaster without outside support. Hence, Baystate has a five day supply of food on hand. There is also a warehouse filled with pandemic supplies of 30 days. Since communications are essential to emergency preparedness and disaster relief, there is a backup phone system, cellphones for redistribution, and even 100 radios that can be put on a single frequency and a mobile satellite phone. The facility has 30,000 gallons on campus of fuel capacity which should be sufficient to sustain operations for 96 hours.

Mr. Lynch emphasized that it is important in an emergency to take care of yourself first and that is what the medical professionals are also trained to do. They also must take care of their families since otherwise they would be distracted about their welfare to do work. Only then does one worry about property.

It was very impressive to hear how the regional hospitals meet regularly to exchange best practices and also work with firemen and police departments. Relationships are critical and are built over time and they must be in place when an emergency or disaster strikes.

Mr. Lynch shared with us his varied experiences as to the responses various scenarios from barricades (which required rerouting of staff and ambulances) to shootings to a major explosion with 8 burn victims that were not readily identifiable. He also stated that when the Ebola crisis in western Africa peaked a few years ago that Baystate Health was one of a handful of centers in Massachusetts selected to be a treatment unit and it took them 18 months to prepare for this.

Mr. Lynch's presentation can be downloaded here.
 
Bay State Health (and we) are very lucky to have such a consummate emergency and security professional in our midst as Mr. Thomas Lynch and we thank him for all that he has done for our major hospital and its community!

Remembering John Musante - Amherst's Town Manager and Our Neighbor

Sometimes you feel as though it is a very bad dream and soon you will wake up and the sun will be shining again.

Two days ago, on September 20, my husband and I returned from visiting our daughter at her college for Family Weekend. The weather was simply perfect - a gorgeous late summer day in New England.

I had an uneasy feeling, for some reason, and checked masslive.com only to find headlines about our Town Manager, John Musante, who is also our neighbor in Amherst. I called out to my husband since I did not want to read the article alone. On Sunday morning, John Musante, loving husband, devoted father, and dedicated public servant of the highest integrity had passed away suddenly.

The neighborhood and the town of Amherst will never be the same.

Yesterday, we saw several of the family members and we all hugged, trying to understand from our shock this heartbreaking event. Neighbors are visiting one another, stopping to talk at length, in what was always a very caring and wonderful neighborhood.

John Musant was only 53 years of age. He left a tremendous legacy in our town and,  just last Thursday evening, after a full day of teaching and also taking part in the New England Security Day, which I bloggesd about, we headed to the Amherst block party where we saw John talking to some colleagues of ours. The downtown was closed to traffic and people of all ages were there to enjoy entertainment, food, and companionship.

I will always remember seeing John walking his dog "Griffy" past our house, seeing him mowing his lawn, and taking time to chat. We would enjoy talking about our children and the unique town of Amherst, with its type of government, beauty, history,  and many wonderful characters. John was the consummate professional, always cool, always pleasant, and extremely hard-working.

The photo below (apologies for it being  a bit grainy). I took at a big emergency sheltering exercise at UMass Amherst at the Mullins Center back in 2014 in which several of the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class participated. There he is with our fire chief. My students were very excited to see them. John was a UMass Amherst alum and the tributes to him continue to flow, including those from college presidents as well as from the UMass Amherst Chancellor, Dr. Subbaswamy. 

Our community lost a great person, and our hearts go out to his grieving family members.

Rest in Peace, Mr. John Musante - you will always be part of Amherst!

Photos from Our Great Dynamics of Disasters Banquet in Greece

Conferences are places where you reconnect with friends from around the world, make new ones, exchange ideas, and have memories to treasure of new experiences.

Last night we held the gala banquet for our Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece.

This conference has been taking place during a historic week for Greece because of the financial debt crisis and the euro.

Conversations on this topic have permeated the conference although its focus was primarily natural disasters. This conference brought together researchers and practitioners from the US, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Romania,  Russia,  among other countries.

Below are photos taken last night at our banquet. The beauty of the scenery and the great hospitality and camaraderie we will fondly remember. The important work in this domain continues.

Many thanks to my fellow conference co-organizers, Professor Panos M. Pardalos and Professor Ilias Kotsireas for making this conference possible! Thanks also to all the speakers and participants.

Crisis Management and Resilient Leaders

People are starting to take notice.

It is hard not to -- with record-breaking temperatures in the United States this summer, severe drought enveloping many states, including some of our major grain and corn states, which will surely drive prices up for food products, extreme weather events and storms happening with increasing frequency, plus climate change even affecting our infrastructure -- from our roads to our electric power networks.

There is even a blood shortage this summer -- the worst in 15 years -- being reported by the Red Cross, partially attributed to the storms and heat this summer.

We have been researching fragile critical infrastructure networks and even wrote the book, Fragile Networks, in which we defined terms such as robustness and quantified synergies associated with network integration, through the prism of supply chains, since, truly, it is supply chains that link our economic activities together through production, transportation, storage, and ultimate distribution. I spoke on Building Resiliency in Washington DC on a special Transportation Research Board panel.

Our world is changing and  leaders must become aware of crisis management.


We are in need of Resilient Leaders.

The Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst has on its homepage the following:

Resilient Leadership for an Evolving Business Climate

and it is great to see new courses being taught around this theme and new initiatives.

There is a feature news article, Students Learn Crisis Management in Innovative Isenberg Course,  on the new course in Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare  that I taught in Spring 2012. In the course, we had speakers from the National Guard, the Red Cross, the UMass emergency preparedness group, and even a disaster communication expert and a former student of mine from the profit sector, who has worked in healthcare. Nice to see my students quoted in the article.

Yes, even the army has realized the importance of location theory in determining where its critical supplies should be stored since it expects a greater role in humanitarian crises and evacuation management -- topics that we studied in my course and timely response and deliveries can save lives in crises.

Our research from blood supply chains to supply chain metrics in the case of disasters can be accessed on the Virtual Center for Supernetworks website.