Community Corner

County Health Department Earns Perfect Score

For the second time, a team of health officials give the DuPage County Health Department a 100 percent rating for its plans on how to handle a public health emergency.

Health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have given the DuPage County Health Department the highest rating, 100 percent, for its public health emergency plans.

The Health Department is the local coordinating agency for the countywide Strategic National Stockpile, which would deliver medications to nearly 1 million DuPage County residents in the event of a public health emergency.

This is the second time that the Health Department achieved a 100 percent rating in all 12 of the functional areas that were reviewed by
officials. The department received a perfect score in 2009, so the CDC waived its review last year.

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The Technical Assistance Review of the Health Department included high praise for every facet of the agency’s planning, which officials called “well developed, well thought out and continually enhanced.”

The review included that DuPage County, despite its excellent ratings, is strengthening its training and education, as well as scheduling more drills and exercises to to test and validate plans.

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Maureen McHugh, the health department's executive director, said state and federal officials conducted their assessment in June and focused their review on the department’s ability to respond to a public health emergency and maintain operational readiness, which
makes sure that residents are protected during an emergency. The Health Department is the lead county agency in public health emergencies.

The Health Department’s emergency response plans are reviewed as a requirement of the Cities Readiness Initiative grant. The CRI grant is a federal program to aid local agencies and cities while improving their ability to deliver medicines and medical supplies to the entire population during a large-scale public health emergency, such as a bioterrorism attack.

For more information on the DuPage County Health Department, follow on Twitter @DuPageHD or become a fan on Facebook.


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