Throughout the COVID-19 response, Bismarck-Burleigh Pubic Health’s Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) has performed critical support roles for the public, as well as health care providers in the city of Bismarck, Burleigh County, and the Southwest Central eight-county region including service areas for Custer Health (Mercer, Oliver, Morton, Grant and Sioux Counties), Emmons County and Kidder County. The EPR department is headed by Crystalynn Kuntz, who has worked in the capacity for nearly a decade and has more than 22 years of experience as a nurse. Kalen Ost has served as the EPR Information Specialist since 2017, and has spent more than 15 years in various communication roles.
Tasks performed by EPR staff throughout the COVID-19 response include:
- Collecting individuals’ samples to be tested by the state laboratory during private mass collection events.
- Contact tracing confirmed COVID-19 cases and communicating with individuals who may have come in close contact with them.
- Helping stand up the City of Bismarck Joint Information Center and provide support to the individuals who served in it throughout the response effort.
- Maintaining a working level of knowledge of COVID-19 as the constantly evolving response learned about a pandemic in real time.
- Managing contact lists that long-term health care facilities use for mass notification.
- Providing education pieces and amplifying local, state and national guidance on a variety of COVID-19 topics.
- Serving as the liaison between the state and local levels of government, as well as providing communication support for the health units in their region.
- Scheduling and helping to provide fit testing for first responders and long-term care facilities, as well as training the trainer opportunities to encourage ongoing self-testing for organizations moving forward.
- Working with the National Guard and Department of Health to stand up and take down a 200-bed response unit at the University of Mary Fieldhouse to be utilized in the event that COVID-19-related health needs overwhelm hospital capacity of beds, supplies, equipment and staff.
- Writing talking points for a variety of information dissemination vehicles.
As you can imagine, the only way these tasks can be completed is through a focus on teamwork and receiving assistance from a variety of outside entities. Certainly, we can’t do it alone and we’d also like to thank the many project partners we’ve had over the past weeks and months of this pandemic response.