Public Health – Seattle & King County (PHSKC) is worked up to share an After-Action Report summarizing key info from the primary two years (January 2020 – January 2022) of PHSKC’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

The After-Action Report was created to raised perceive the efforts undertaken by Public Health through the COVID-19 pandemic, report the contributions and roles of those that responded, and establish methods to strengthen future responses to public well being emergencies. The doc captures strengths, classes realized, and proposals raised by stakeholders and companions.

A abstract of the report is offered in English, Spanish, Amharic, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Russian, Somali, Tagalog, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

The After-Action Report is knowledgeable by an intensive overview course of. As a part of this course of, reflections and proposals have been collected from a whole lot of employees throughout our division by way of interviews, facilitated discussions with response groups, and a department-wide survey. Additionally, companions representing community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, governmental and tribal companions, healthcare suppliers, and different key companions shared suggestions primarily based on their experiences through the COVID-19 pandemic response by “town halls” facilitated by an exterior consulting agency.

The report critiques how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in King County and Washington State, presents an evaluation of findings, identifies key strengths of the response, and features a listing of really helpful actions for PHSKC to deal with as areas for enchancment.

Significant strengths and improvements that benefited the pandemic response are famous within the report, together with:

• PHSKC’s collaboration throughout departments and management by achievements such because the nation’s first civilian isolation and quarantine system, focused vaccination objectives, and dedication to fairness, serving to to keep up the lowest death rate due to COVID-19 of the twenty largest metropolitan areas of the nation (as of January 2022).
• PHSKC’s award-winning COVID-19 information dashboards that helped to maintain the general public knowledgeable and enabled data-informed public well being decision-making, focusing response efforts on these most impacted by the pandemic.
• The position of Community Navigators—folks representing numerous populations and embedded of their communities—acknowledged by employees, companions, and stakeholders for his or her position bridging the hole between public well being efforts and communities most impacted by the pandemic.
• PHSKC’s Language Access Team that raised the usual for language accessibility by innovation and collaboration with key companions, translating public well being info into forty languages with brief turnarounds.

The report additionally highlights suggestions that affect all areas of the COVID-19 response and common methods wherein we serve our communities, protecting themes akin to relationship constructing, standardization of processes, hiring and onboarding, crew or staffing capability, security or wellbeing issues, fairness, and coordination/collaboration. Significant areas of enchancment famous within the report embody:

• Addressing obstacles to reaching fairness in PHSKC’s response by emphasizing fairness, looking for group enter in decision-making, elevated fairness coaching for workers, and growing illustration of BIPOC suppliers within the Public Health Reserve Corps.
• Increasing Access and Functional Needs planning to make sure residents with disabilities have entry to info and interventions akin to testing and vaccines by improved translation and interpretation companies, web site accessibility, illustration on public well being dashboards, and transportation to utilize assets and help.
• Ensuring workloads and response calls for stay affordable, and PHSKC groups have satisfactory staffing and assets to fulfill elevated response calls for whereas nonetheless with the ability to observe self-care and take time away from the job.
• Reducing administrative burdens and streamlining the hiring and onboarding course of to allow PHSKC to scale up staffing rapidly and equitably to fulfill response wants.

While this report isn’t inclusive of all work associated to COVID-19, the After-Action Report highlights the rising practices that benefitted the pandemic response, and which ought to be continued, enhanced, or modified for future pandemic responses. We are dedicated to making sure our efforts are aligned with the King County True North and Values, and are according to a tradition of high quality enchancment that’s grounded in ideas of transparency and accountability.

We are tremendously grateful to employees from throughout Public Health and different King County departments, our companions, and the group, all of whom contributed their time and experience to the COVID-19 response.

We hope that this COVID-19 After-Action Report will current alternatives to additional enhance future PHSKC emergency response efforts, in addition to the essential work of Public Health in serving communities in our routine work.

The After-Action Report will be discovered on PHSKC’s COVID-19 data reports webpage, together with a abstract out there in English, Spanish, Amharic, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Russian, Somali, Tagalog, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Originally revealed December 30, 2022