Citation

Buehler JW, Whitney EA, Berkelman RL. BMC Public Health 2006; 6(1): 285.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/1471-2458-6-285

PMID

17116256

PMCID

PMC1676007

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Governments may be overwhelmed by a large-scale public health emergency, such as a massive bioterrorist attack, requiring collaboration with businesses and other community partners to respond effectively. In Georgia, public health officials and members of the Georgia Business Force of the Metro Atlanta Region of the Business Executives for National Security are collaborating to develop procedures for dispensing medications from the Strategic National Stockpile. Lessons learned from this collaboration should be useful to other public health and business leaders interested in developing similar partnerships. METHODS: The authors conducted a case study based on interviews with 26 government, business, and academic participants in this collaboration. RESULTS: The partnership is based on shared objectives to protect public health and assure community cohesion in the wake of a large-scale disaster and on the recognition that acting alone, neither public health agencies nor businesses are likely to manage such a response successfully. For businesses, collaborative efforts also support assurance of business continuity. The partnership has required participants to acknowledge and address multiple challenges, including a cultural divide that separates people in these two sectors and operational constraints, such as concerns about the confidentiality of shared information, liability, and the limits of volunteerism. The partnership has been facilitated by a business model based on defining shared objectives, identifying mutual needs and vulnerabilities, developing carefully-defined projects, and evaluating proposed project methods through exercise testing. Through collaborative engagement in progressively more complex projects, the partners have made considerable progress in overcoming these barriers. CONCLUSIONS: As a result of this partnership, essential relationships have been established, substantial private resources and capabilities have been engaged in government preparedness programs, and a model for collaborative, emergency mass dispensing of pharmaceuticals has been developed and tested. The lessons learned from this collaboration in Georgia should be considered by other government and business leaders seeking to develop similar partnerships.

Language: en