Outbreak Reporting Portal
In my role as a School Mitigation Specialist at Chesterfield Health District, I worked on developing a reporting portal for outbreaks. This portal serves the purpose of allowing facilities to complete mandatory reporting without the burden of awaiting a return phone call or email to complete their report to the Health Department. In addition to providing convenience, this portal also provides a secure avenue for schools to submit line lists containing personal health information.
Through this project I learned the importance of understanding adjustments will need to be made along the way even after implementation. Creating a flawless product from the start is a difficult task to complete and often times implementation is necessary to obtain a clear idea of how something is going to operate in real time so that adjustments can be made to better suite the workflow.
School Team Lead
I was given the opportunity to serve as the lead of the “School Team” at Chesterfield Health District in Fall of 2020. During that role I had a team of 4-6 members focusing on disease mitigation, specifically COVID19 at the time, and conducting both case investigations and facility outreach. This was my first experience leading a team in a professional setting and I feel that I learned a lot of valuable skills. Of the most valuable was the importance of clear communication between myself as a leader and those I am working with. Working with the daunting work load that we had, it was vert important to ensure an open line of communication at all times to effectively complete the job.
In this role I completed the following:
• Oversee a team of case investigators in district efforts for outbreak response in school and daycare settings.
• Provide health education to facilities and ensure disease control recommendations are implemented in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Monitor and update reported outbreak information in the Virginia Outbreak Surveillance System and oversee quality assurance.
• Maintain understanding of guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure in-depth knowledge of the latest developments in public health and mitigation guidance for COVID-19 and other diseases.
• Conduct facility site visits both proactively and in the event of an outbreak.
Group Project Lead
In Spring 2022, I experienced a challenge within a group project for a class presentation assignment. Unfortunately, one of the team members was not completing sufficient work in comparison to the rest of the group and was failing to complete, if any, of the group deadlines we created. Through communication with the group, we came up with a plan to distribute the parts of the project that were missing to meet the deadline. Through peer evaluations the issue was resolved and I felt that our group really pulled together to complete the assignment regardless of the hardship presented to us. This was a learning experience I feel I can take to the professional world with me as there will likely be a time when a team member or colleague is not completing what is expected, but the job must still get done.