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Manatee Health Officials Begin Assessing Public Health System

Posted on: Saturday, 21 May 2005, 00:00 CDT

May 20--PALMETTO -- The health of the county's public health system is undergoing scrutiny.

Representatives of 17 different organizations and institutions associated with Manatee County's public health system converged Thursday at Manatee Convention and Civic Center to figure out how to do more with less.

Participants came from all three of the county's hospitals and program providers such as Manatee Glens and Head Start.

Ronald Berezniak, assistant dean for academic affairs at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, said the forum provided him with information that will help him form the substance of rotations for his medical students.

It also made him aware of new volunteer opportunities.

"Being a new medical school in the community, we want to be a part of the community," Berezniak said.

He also was impressed with the enthusiasm of the various organizations.

"They want this health system to work," he said.

Five groups of eight people spent the day grappling with their assessments of essential services the county provides, including but not limited to the monitoring, investigation and diagnosis of health problems; mobilization of community partnerships to identify and solve health problems, and the enforcement of laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety.

This is the first time such an assessment has been undertaken locally, according to Daniel Stewart, a public health nutrition program director at the Manatee County Health Department.

Stewart said that individual groups in the county are doing a lot and that he hopes the assessment results will show them what each can do to help the other.

Charles Henry, Manatee County Health Department's environmental health director, will spend a few days submitting the groups' conclusions to a database at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, according to Dr. Gladys Branic, director of the Manatee County Health Department. The CDC in turn will generate a report that can be analyzed and used in planning, proposal writing and allocation of health-related resources.

The assessment, Henry said, will be a starting point. The report will be the next step, followed by the translation of the report's findings into goals and policies.

Phyllis Elliot, an infection control nurse at Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, said getting an awareness of what everyone else in the community is doing is very valuable.

Henry agreed, pointing out that it would be hard for any one person to be knowledgeable about all the county's systems.

After the meeting, Elliot, who is relatively new to the community, said she was impressed with what she had seen so far, and she plans on staying involved in its evolution.

"The public health care system is the building block of health care," she said.

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Source: The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.)

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