AAMC-CDC Cooperative Agreement
AAMC-Based Projects
Bioterrorism Information Dissemination Collaborative
In early 2003, the Bioterrorism Information Dissemination Collaborative
(BIDC) was formed to enhance the distribution of clinical and public health
information regarding terrorism preparedness and emergency response by
the clinical community through their professional associations. Since
the anthrax attacks of 2001, the CDC had come to realize that health professionals
value up-to-date information from the CDC and place a high value on receiving
timely, clinical guidance from their own professional associations. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked the AAMC to assist
in coordinating the BIDC effort as a part of their Cooperative Agreement.
The AAMC coordinated the implementation of the BIDC across the eight
participating associations, providing administrative management, facilitating
communication among the participants, and promoting the use of standard
domains of evaluation across the various projects.
Participating Associations
The BIDC was comprised of representatives from eight professional health
associations. Together, these groups represent more than 300,000 health
care professionals who would be at the front lines during a public health
emergency:
American Academy of Dermatology
American Academy of Family Physicians
American College of Emergency Physicians
American College of Physicians
American Osteopathic Association
Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
Each of the eight associations chose topics they felt were most relevant
to their targeted members.
Objectives and Outcomes
The overall goal of the BIDC's activity was to better understand methods
of informing and educating each association's members about timely and
relevant public health issues in urgent situations and on a day-to-day
basis. Though initiated as a preparatory measure to address the potential
of bioterrorism threats, participants agreed that lessons learned from
the Collaborative would also inform their associations' activities in
response to other public health crises, including natural disasters and
naturally occurring infectious disease outbreaks. Each association was
asked to evaluate the success of their dissemination activities and to
share what they learned with the other groups.
The BIDC's ojbectives included:
- Developing effective partnerships between the associations, the
AAMC and the CDC.
- Enabling each association to examine information outreach strategies
to their members and to assess those mechanisms that effectively and
efficiently deliver information to organization constituents.
- Reducing repetitive or redundant distribution of information.
- Establishing an opportunity to provide feedback to CDC regarding
the content and structure of critical health information, and the
modes of its transmission that are most useful to their members.
Project Summaries
BIDC associations chose different approaches to reaching their targeted
members and addressed a variety of information needs. Summaries of each
of their projects follow:
American Academy of Dermatology
American Academy of Family Physicians
American College of Emergency Physicians
American College of Physicians
American Osteopathic Association
Association for Professionals in Infection Control
and Epidemiology
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
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