Mar/Apr 2005 - Volume 4, Issue 2

Community Indicator Project
Progressing Well

On April 12, 2005, fourteen members of the Community Indicator Task Force, chaired by Naperville (Illinois) Police Chief Dial, met in the Naperville Police Headquarters Community Room to discuss approximately 20 community-level, disaster-preparedness indicators undergoing development since October 22, 2004. The task force is using the US Census Bureau definition of community for indicator development: city/town, county, or zip (see: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en).

Chief David Dial demonstrates use of respiratory protection for police officers (April 12, 2005).

Louise Kuhny, head of emergency services group (April 12, 2005).

The following persons (affiliations in parentheses) attended: Kathy Anderson (sergeant, Naperville Police Department); Rashmi Chugh, M.D., M.P.H. (medical officer, DuPage County Health Department); Dave Dial, M.P.A. (task force chair and chief, Naperville Police Department); Jack Hickey (administrative director of safety and corporate risk, Edward Hospital, Naperville); Joseph M. Jaras, Jr. (safety director, Magnetrol International, Downers Grove); Louise Kuhny, R.N., B.S., M.P.H. (infection control professional, Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Downers Grove); Margaret O’Leary, M.D., M.B.A., (director, SEMP); Robert Plant (administrator for emergency preparedness at Commonwealth Edison, Joliet); Karen Saunders (disaster coordinator, Central DuPage Hospital, Winfield); Jean M. Sloboda, M.P.H. (senior health physics technician, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne); Pete Smith (emergency preparedness manager, City of Naperville); Robbin Traver, M.T. (ASCP) (manager, microbiology and chemistry laboratories, Central DuPage Hospital, Winfield); John H. Wu, M.B.A. (chief, Naperville Fire Department); and James Zoda, Ph.D. (professor, economics, Benedictine University, Lisle). Additional group members are: Yvette Anderson (local government liaison, American Red Cross of Greater Chicago), Cliff Lundeen (Acxiom, Chicago) and Dennis O’Leary, M.D. (president, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, Oakbrook Terrace).

Chief John Wu and Karen Saunders at subgroup meeting held at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital (March 28, 2005).

Jack Hickey (left) and Pete Smith (right) (April 12, 2005).

The purpose of the task group is to develop and use (test) a set of community-level, disaster-preparedness indicators whose data over time is useful to 1) community organizations committed to continuous improvement and 2) informed citizens who want to know how well community organizations are performing the disaster-preparedness processes of which they are capable. This innovative work is pioneering in the US. In addition to meetings of the whole group, subgroups led by individuals appointed by the chair have met to work on indicators. A book written collaboratively by task force members will summarize their experiences in developing community disaster-preparedness indicators. The book publication date is targeted for summer 2006.

The community areas addressed by the indicators, which follow the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 classification of US critical infrastructures into 17 areas, include five: emergency systems, energy, public health and health care, telecommunications, and banking and finance.

Sergeant Kathy Anderson (April 12, 2005).

Dr. Jim Zoda (left) and Joe Jaras (right, head of banking and finance group);
Chief Dial in background (April 12, 2005).

Dr. Rashmi Chugh (April 12, 2005)

Several indicator examples are: public safety back-up capacity, hospital surge capacity, Community Emergency Response Team program training, facility perimeter security, and smallpox vaccine preparedness.

Robbin Traver (April 12, 2005).

Dr. Dennis O’Leary attending subgroup meeting at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital
(March 8, 2005).

The next phase of the project is to use the indicators to collect three data points, and assess indicator reliability and validity. The final phase of the project involves contributors writing up their experiences for publication. The purpose of the book is to stimulate discussion and thought, and similar efforts in other communities.

Emergency Preparedness in Electric Utilities

An Interview with Commonwealth Edison’s Robert Plant

This dialogue occurred between Robert Plant of Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) and Margaret O’Leary on April 12, 2005, and has been edited for publication. ComEd is a subsidiary of utility holding company Exelon, and distributes electricity to 3.7 million homes and businesses in Chicago and surrounding areas of Northern Illinois, which calculates to approximately 70% of the state’s population. ComEd’s service territory encompasses 398 municipalities in the northern one-fifth of Illinois. The utility owns approximately 80,000 circuit miles of transmission and distribution lines; it receives most of its power supply from sister company Exelon Generation.*

Robert Plant (April 12, 2005)

Please explain your past and present roles in Commonwealth Edison.

My current role is administrator for Emergency Preparedness at Commonwealth Edison. I work for our Energy Delivery business unit, formerly called Transmission and Distribution. Prior to that, I oversaw all of our nuclear operator training programs in our corporate training department and worked in nuclear plant emergency preparedness (which involved all of our radiological and medical drills). I am certified on, and was an instructor for licensed operators at, our Braidwood and Byron nuclear stations.

Please explain“transmission and distribution.”

The electrical system basically exists in two parts. A high-voltage transmission system (the very tall towers) links the power plants to the substations, and a lower voltage distribution system (for example, telephone poles) links the substations to the customers (homes, offices, factories). Together, both systems comprise the electrical system that joins the entire country. Interchange of electricity between one region of the country and another is transmission.

The basic business of T&D has not changed over the years. All utilities must plan, design, engineer, construct, operate and maintain their networks. However, utilities are under extreme pressure to perform these functions more and more efficiently and cost effectively. All utilities are scrambling to put together the tools,processes and training required to meet and exceed the ever increasing customer expectations.

What do you do as administrator for emergency preparedness?

One of my jobs with ComEd is to try to guide the whole ComEd emergency preparedness organization to deal efficiently and effectively with events that are beyond the normal scope of day-to-day trouble. A single customer losing power and a car hitting a street pole, knocking wires down, are fairly routine occurrences. But if we get a large storm that interrupts power to tens of thousands of customers or a substation that decides it doesn’t want to be here any longer and blows its top--all sorts of larger-scale events, we bring our emergency response organization to bear on that.

How does your organization respond to large-scale events, such as September 11, 2001?

We have had in the past a very robust emergency preparedness organization with real good procedures and check lists. ComEd has been very proactive in its thinking for emergency preparedness. A good example is September 11 th. Our response was as slow as anybody else’s--I think it was about two hours before we recognized the need to open our emergency operations center. One of the things we quickly found as we were revaluating all of our emergency response processes, capabilities and vulnerabilities in light of this new threat, was that we were actually already pretty well prepared to deal with a large-scale terrorism threat.

A terrorist really isn’t going to do anything worse to us than Mother Nature does to us from time to time, which can be a lot. A terrorist attack will be a little more focused and some of the targets may be more strategic, which gives us challenges in that area. But we reviewed the whole gamut--as far as designing our substations and going forward with what we can do to mitigate the threat as well as any consequences of any event. But we found that we were pretty well prepared to deal with this kind of event. We did have to look into protecting our people in case of a secondary device, which is fairly common when you’re dealing with terrorism. And we did have to do some additional training and education. What we did find is that among utilities nationwide, most of them were not nearly as prepared. I found myself doing a speaking circuit around the country to various conferences to describe some of our emergency response organization and how we handle this kind of event, to help other utilities get up to speed so that they can do the same thing.

Basically, we have teams of individuals on call. Each team is comprised of skilled individuals specifically selected for the types of events they would be called for. Having pre-identified teams in a “duty status” allows us to respond immediately to significant events. The response is modified based on the extent of the damage to our system or the number of customers impacted, as well as the type of event. We can escalate our response to the point of mobilizing our entire company. We also have mutual assistance agreements with other utilities so we can help each other out if our own resources are inadequate for the event. For catastrophic events, we can even request state and federal assistance once the governor has declared an emergency.

What is your biggest challenge right now overseeing the emergency organization?

In every large company, you’re going to have reorganizations from time to time, and we did in 2003. One of the things that ended up falling through the cracks was the impact of a very large-scale reorganization on our emergency response capabilities. There are some parts of the reorganization that did not achieve expectations. Sometimes, despite the great care and careful planning for a restructuring, the planners don’t recognize the impact on shared functions and the synergy that is built up over time across departmental lines, in this case for something like emergency response. Every individual working for any utility must be fully productive in his or her specific job. There are not any large groups of people who have emergency response as their only job. Emergency response is a function that is shared across all departments. A big part of what we overlooked was realizing what knowledge and skills it takes to do certain jobs in emergency situations.

Our field operators are fully trained and capable of doing what they have to do. So are the dispatchers who routinely support and direct them from the office. Dispatch is an inadequate term because dispatchers do far more than dispatch or tell crews where to go. They’re also problem solvers and trouble-shooters. They research things for the crews in the field. They keep things organized and establish priorities for emergent activities. They keep a close eye on anything that could compromise the safety of the crew in the field. They sit in what we call the “Arena” at Commonwealth Edison’s Operations Control Center (OCC) located in Northern Illinois.

ComEd Command Center in action.

Our service territory is very dynamic. There is a huge amount of growth in Northern Illinois and our system is always changing, being added to and reconfigured. So it’s very difficult to keep up with this. It is kind of like if the car you drove every day had controls on the dashboard that would move around, appear or disappear, or change their function unexpectedly. During normal conditions the OCC dispatchers generally deal with operating crews that are out on the street every day working with trouble events and controlling the system (through switching) to allow maintenance and construction to take place.

The dispatchers do not normally direct the maintenance task force. They direct the operations people who make the circuits safe for the maintenance people to work on them. Some of the operating crews can do minor maintenance like connecting or disconnecting a service wire, operating disconnects (switches), or replacing a fuse. But if there is a broken pole or you have multiple strands of wire down, additional tools and people are needed. Operations people aren’t equipped on their trucks to deal with the more significant problems. That gets assigned to our fix-it-now teams of people who go out and repair it or it gets put into the maintenance schedule for future work.

During a major event like a large storm, our OCC would be overwhelmed because we bring in all of our maintenance people into the mix to do the immediate repairs needed to restore service to our customers as quickly as possible. We essentially multiply the size of our work force several times by calling not just on the operations people to respond to the storm damage, but all of the maintenance and construction folks as well.

ComEd “Arena” at the Operations Control Center in Northern Illinois. Each POD governs operations in a different region. One POD is devoted exclusively to Chicago.

Logistically, it can be extremely challenging. So we open our Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and satellite dispatch centers and we staff them with additional people from all over the company to support these crews and try to organize and handle the very complex response. We try to assign crews in as efficient a manner as possible. We don’t want to assign a crew to go to North Plainfield from South Plainfield for their next job while a crew already in North Plainfield does the opposite. If two crews pass each other going in different directions to reach their next assignment, the dispatcher will hear about it. It is frustrating to the crews and inefficient. This is one tiny example of all the things that must be integrated into safe, effective dispatch operations. Few people have the knowledge and skill sets to be a good dispatcher. That is the piece that became broken during our latest reorganization. Like I said, it is a very demanding job to do dispatch. It takes a great deal of knowledge of what’s out there on the system, the hardware, the operating procedures, safety requirements, specialized terminology, and everything else. We flat ran out of qualified people to do that role.

Then you don’t have the satellite dispatch centers any more?

Yes, we do. Unfortunately, there isn’t any other option right now. We are pushing the technology advances as hard as we can, and we can see just a few years down the road that this will become a non-issue, but for now, it is very people-intensive to manage a large restoration effort. At the moment, a portion of each team we use to staff the satellite dispatch centers are people who do not have the right skill sets and knowledge. We have a massive effort underway to provide additional training for all these people, and we are teaming them up with experienced people as well. We are developing additional drills and practice sessions to further train (and evaluate) each person prior to them having to perform their emergency role for real.

This is one instance where our size works against us. Smaller, municipal based utilities can’t begin to approach the economies of scale that a large utility does. That economy of scale is largely driven by people specializing in their particular jobs. When an emergency hits, these specialists do not possess the generalized knowledge and skills their small-utility counterpart would have. Smaller utilities typically engage everyone for emergency response, even the accountants and lawyers. To better serve our customers, we are trying to recapture that ability, but it is proving to be more challenging than we anticipated. What we went to in the reorganization was a team-based approach. We tried to have teams that are set up with a set rotation so that people would know when they were on duty and when they were not, so that they would have a better work-life balance.

The problem is that one dispatcher can handle only so many crews, so more teams mean more dispatchers. A lot of it depends on the experience of that dispatcher on how many crews he or she can deal with. There are a lot of strategies involved for emergency dispatching and it’s very difficult for people to do especially if they’re not familiar with how the crews work and what their needs are. When a crew calls in to request 275 feet of 1-0 wire and a 37.5 kV transformer, that dispatcher has to be able to understand what that crew is telling them. If they say they need six 45 foot class-2 poles and a rear-lot cart, they need to know what that means, too. Picking that jargon up off of a radio transmission can be a very difficult thing to do. They also have to be able to deal with emergent issues and the many problems that always arise.

We are transitioning to an emergency dispatch organization involving 2,200 people assigned to multiple teams, who need to be able to do dispatching well, from an organization of roughly 300 people we had performing that role a couple years ago. All the procedures and checklists these folks will be using must be completely rewritten. We have to proceduralize details never captured before, like how to get parts, fuses, clamps, and equipment out to the crews without the crews having to come in to pick up supplies. As the company changes, many of those changes impact emergency response processes. Some bring new challenges; others bring new opportunities to do things more effectively. We’re looking for any way to maximize the crew’s safety and productivity in the field. In addition to meeting the needs of our customers well, we feel a deep burden to support our field crews, for they are on the front line. They are the ones doing a dangerous job under difficult circumstances and they are depending on us to make their efforts count.

I guess the bottom line here is that most emergency response organizations do not fit the traditional “departmental model” used for business. They do not appear on organizational charts, and often are not considered when business decisions are made. It is surprisingly easy for a company to “shoot itself in the foot” while making decisions that are otherwise very sound and prudent. It is surprisingly difficult to anticipate how business decisions will impact emergency response capability, particularly when many decisions are implemented in short order, and with a variety of intents. A focused review of emergency response capabilities following any significant change in your business environment will be helpful in uncovering new gaps. A comprehensive drill should be even more effective. An awareness of the potential for problems and a pro-active approach to identify/resolve them before business changes are enacted could prevent problems, but only if the decision makers truly have a solid understanding of the emergency response process and organization, or are willing to listen to those that do.

Source

* www.hoovers.com.

Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital Advances its Smallpox Preparedness System

An Interview with Dr. Valerie Phillips and Louise Kuhny

This dialogue occurred between Valerie Phillips, M.D., and Louise Kuhny, B.S., R.N., M.P.H., (emergency physician and infection control professional, respectively) at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital (Downers Grove, Illinois), and Margaret O'Leary on March 28, 2005, and has been edited for publication.

Valerie Phillips, M.D. (April 7, 2005)

I understand that you are a “smallpox hospital.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

Phillips: Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital is not an official smallpox hospital, but we have chosen to go forward with what two years ago the President [George Bush] and the DuPage [County] Health Department requested of hospitals, that is, to designate teams of health professionals to be vaccinated against smallpox. Two years ago, we learned that the process of finding out who our volunteers were was very cumbersome and labor-intensive. It was done manually with individual interviews with employees and really took a fair amount of time to get to the point of even identifying persons who were able and willing to receive the smallpox vaccine. We decided that even though the federal vaccination clinic program got halted in this country due to lack of participation, we would like to be able to cooperate with the program more efficiently if it ever rolled out again.

So what we’ve worked on intermittently during the last couple of years is getting through some roadblocks of actually being able to query the employees about their vaccination history, that is, who has been vaccinated in the military, who was vaccinated as children, and who has never been vaccinated, and also to prescreen employees as to whether they would be willing to be approached again about vaccination if the need arose. By completing the questionnaire, employees are NOT consenting to receiving the vaccine in the future, but ARE consenting to being queried again.

We identified some roadblocks as to where you can maintain this information. My original approach was to have the Human Resources department build this information into employees’ files so that we could then query the human resource database. We realized, however, that no medical information was allowed in employees’ human resources file because it could be misconstrued as discriminating against somebody because he or she were or were not vaccinated or did or did not give consent to vaccination. We knew that we would never use the information in that regard, but human resource files are pretty limited on what kind of information that can be tracked in there.

Ultimately, we approached the Employee Health department to talk with staff there about what kind of database they have, what could they build in there, and what would they be willing to build in there. We used a contact person at Advocate corporate employee health who was very interested in the project and willing to take it further. She was able to get back to me to say that yes, we will be able to keep this information and have been able to build in additional data fields for the points you have requested. She did all the work needed so that employee health could monitor smallpox vaccine status on an ongoing basis.

The stage that we’re in now is refining the screening questionnaire that will be used to query employees. The only thing that remains to be added are slots for the employee’s name, hire date, and file date—that sort of thing. Employee Health will start using this with newly hired employees when they are having their original employee health evaluation. Their responses will be loaded into the database, which we can then query later based on certain scenarios. We hope that it will eventually be used in all Advocate facilities, not only Good Samaritan Hospital. Illinois Masonic Hospital, for example, is very interested and some of the other facilities as well.

How does this work into the community? For example, can I come and get a smallpox vaccination at your hospital?

Kuhny:No, but the value to the community is that we’re willing to participate in the vaccination program and willing to take care of smallpox patients. Advocate has made the commitment as part of its mission to care for the community, which includes being able to provide for smallpox patients in the community if there is a smallpox exposure. So we were willing to take on smallpox patients as part of our mission.

So other hospitals don’t take on smallpox patients as part of their mission?

Phillips: Not that I’m aware of. The smallpox vaccination program now at the county level is on hold. All we have done is to try to work ahead so that if the program gets brought back again we will be able to have some of our staff identified more quickly, vaccinated more quickly, and by that be prepared to receive community cases of smallpox if necessary. So at this stage, it’s not that anyone else is refusing to take patients or we’re the only hospital that will take patients. Rather, it’s advance work on our behalf if the smallpox vaccination program is ever rolled out again.

How many people among your staff have volunteered and how big is your staff?

Phillips: The last numbers that I have are two years out of date, so I wouldn’t be able to give a current number. One of the things the database will tell us is how many of our staff have been vaccinated previously, such as through the military. We have a number of staff at this hospital and other Advocate facilities who have been deployed to the military and have been vaccinated against smallpox. It’s important to us to know who those persons are because they could be some of the first persons we could use to staff areas to take care of actual smallpox patients as necessary. They can also be the persons to staff the wound check area when staff who have been vaccinated are working. While working, these vaccinated staff must follow very stringent guidelines, including having their vaccination site inspected and redressed every day. The persons who staff the wound check area are best to have already been vaccinated. We might be able to come up with an adequate number of personnel who were vaccinated in other settings.

If your hospital is ahead of other institutions in terms of having health care professionals vaccinated during a smallpox outbreak, might the county health department ask your vaccinated staff to become community vaccinators, meaning your staff would be asked to join efforts to vaccinate the community?

Phillips: Right now, our thinking is confined to within the boundaries of our hospital and health care system. Right now we have available only persons who have been vaccinated against smallpox in other settings. None of them went through the county health department vaccination program when it was being proposed two years ago. In fact, I am unaware of anyone receiving a vaccination through the DuPage County Health Department when the program was up and running the last time.

Kuhny: The health department did not want to open a clinic unless they had a minimum number of people interested in receiving a smallpox vaccination. In terms of practicality we should know within three to six months what our numbers would be here and which designated staff we would be able to offer vaccination to. We would want to screen our associates and physicians to know whether they can and are willing to receive vaccine.

Is the federal government requesting that each hospital vaccinate a certain number of individuals?

Phillips: No. When the federal program was up and the health departments were the ones running the vaccination clinics, we would have been having our associates vaccinated through the DuPage Health Department. The health department was working with each of the hospitals to determine how many persons each hospital would be able to send for vaccination. At that time, there were very few persons able and willing to be vaccinated. The health department staff did not want to set a clinic date until they had an adequate number of candidates either from our hospital or several hospitals. I believe that at that time, one vile of smallpox vaccine was a hundred doses.

If the program was turned on again, would you go to DuPage Health Department to receive vaccinations?

Phillips: Yes. This is a way for us to have information at our fingertips so that we can move faster to that step of here’s the list of persons we will be sending and they would be scheduling a vaccination clinic for those associates.

Kuhny: It streamlines our process. We have approximately 2,600 employees and if we were to send an initial set of people who would be the first responders to a situation inside the hospital, the number would be between 100-200…

Phillips: …We hope!

Kuhny: …and it would make it much easier. Instead of asking 2,600 people at the time the need for smallpox vaccination became apparent, we would already know the subset of people who could be approached about being vaccinated.

Does DuPage Health Department know that you’ve done this screening and readiness work?

Phillips: They do not know that we are to this final step, but we did commit to them two years ago that this hospital would participate.

Do you know the status of other hospitals in the area in terms of their employee smallpox vaccination screening work?

Phillips: I’ve been told that Good Samaritan was the only hospital in DuPage County that was participating with the county program when the federal program was up and running. It all got put on hold, but we have continued to work on this with the expectation that this may come up again. It was so difficult to be efficient last time. To use this kind of approach for even some of the other exposures might prove beneficial in the long run.

What do you mean by “other exposures?”

Phillips: By other exposures, I mean any exposure where vaccination is useful or having been infected with the native virus or illness might be useful in light of bioterrorism agents. This type of database is ideal for identifying staff with pre-existing immunity. Building a database on associates’ exposures, histories, and contraindications, and candidacy for vaccines is worthwhile. By filling out the questionnaires, associates are not agreeing to receive a vaccine. If they don’t have contraindications, they are agreeing to what circumstances they would be rescreened. Some of the associates told us the first time around “I don’t have contraindications and I’m willing to get the vaccine, only if an actual case of smallpox has been identified.” Others said they would be willing to receive the vaccine even if there was only the threat and no actual case had been identified. So there were two different camps of people. We also lost a lot of candidates when the Centers for Disease Control added to the list of contraindications, for example, history of family coronary artery disease. That actually knocked a lot of people off the list who had been willing candidates prior to that because of course the illnesses added to the contraindication list are so pervasive. It really, really limits who is still a candidate.

Kuhny: We understand how very important it is to provide associates with education in terms of benefits and risks of the vaccine BEFORE we ask people to complete the questionnaire. We recognize that without the correct information from the CDC or some other reliable authority, people may be making their decisions based on unreliable information. So we look at correct information from reliable sources before we ask people to fill out the questionnaire.

Phillips: We use CDC as our source of education. CDC has created a number of documents directed toward the lay person. Here is the concept of why the vaccine is being offered or may be offered again. Here’s what the actual illness presents as. Here is the risk of the vaccination. Here are the side effects. It’s adequate information for someone to make an informed decision.

What if pandemic avian flu became an issue in the US? Could you then use the same database for screening associates for receiving the vaccine?

Kuhny: Our staff is already educated on influenza vaccine and we have a very high annual flu vaccination rate among our associates. So that would be fairly easy to manage.

It is my understanding that a monovalent avian flu vaccine based on the pandemic strain would require six months to manufacture and test before administering it to people.

Kuhny: If the vaccine is considered investigational, we would have to go through the hospital system’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Phillips: One of the problems with the smallpox vaccination is that there have been serious side effects, although the frequency is exceedingly small. There is significant risk with taking the vaccine. Other vaccines that we offer to the employees have a very benign risk profile. My hope is that leaders at other hospitals will take our screening approach and run with it--copy it and amend it so that it fits their facility.

Law Enforcement Agency Accreditation
The Local Viewpoint
An Interview with Naperville Police Lieutenant Dave Hoffman

This dialogue occurred between Naperville (Illinois) Police Lieutenant Hoffman and Margaret O'Leary on March 16, 2005, and has been edited for publication.

Lieutenant Dave Hoffman (March 16, 2005)

What is your role in the Naperville Police Department?

I was promoted to lieutenant in January of 2004, and, in May, began serving as the police department's commander of planning, training and research. Much of my job involves documenting activities pertinent to maintaining our accreditation status with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA or "Commission").* Since joining the Naperville Police Department in June 1979, I have also served as a patrol officer and sergeant supervising patrol operations of marked units (the typical police you would normally see at a call) (1979-1994), and the officer sergeant in charge of internal affairs and public information (1994-2002).

I grew up and attended high school in Naperville. I earned my associate's degree in police science from College of DuPage and my bachelor's degree in criminal justice at Aurora College (now Aurora University). Currently I have also enrolled in the master's degree program in criminal justice management at Lewis University in Romeoville.

What is law enforcement accreditation and CALEA?

Law enforcement accreditation is the process of a law enforcement organization voluntarily complying with a set of professional law enforcement standards with the purpose of improving the delivery of law enforcement services to the community it supports. Other types of professional organizations, such as hospitals and universities, have for many years undergone similar accreditation processes to demonstrate compliance with a set of national standards developed by experts in their fields.

A group of law enforcement leaders recognized the need to develop a body of standards for their profession and, in 1979, established CALEA to meet that need. CALEA is the joint effort of four national organizations: the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), the National Sheriff's Association (NSA), and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The Commission has now formulated 446 national standards covering all areas of law enforcement to constitute the fourth edition (1999) of the Manual of Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies.

Is there a federal or state requirement for law enforcement agencies to be CALEA-accredited?

No. The accreditation movement came from within the law enforcement profession and accreditation is voluntary. To this day, most agencies are not accredited. As of the last CALEA conference in Birmingham, Alabama, there were 714 agencies in four countries (US, Canada, Mexico and Barbados) that achieved accredited or recognition status. There are currently 62 CALEA-accredited law enforcement agencies in Illinois. At any one time, there are hundreds of additional agencies moving towards accreditation. Agencies that have achieved accreditation comprise an elite group.

Naperville Police Department was first accredited in 1992. We have since been reaccredited three times in 1997, 2000, and 2003. The years are not equally spaced, as you might expect, because when the accreditation process first came out, there were 900 standards with which agencies were asked to comply. Thus, each agency was given five years to work on compliance with those 900 standards. Around 1997, CALEA consolidated the standards to a more manageable 446 and also reduced the accreditation cycle from five years to three years. Our next accreditation on-site assessment is August 2006.

What is in the standards manual?

The standards manual is divided into chapters by subject area, ranging from Law Enforcement Role and Authority (Chapter 1) to Court Security (Chapter 73) for law enforcement agencies with responsibilities for the security of a courtroom, courthouse, or both. We are NOT responsible for complying with the standards in Chapter 73 since Naperville Police Department does not have responsibility for securing courtrooms or courthouses, that is, the standard is not applicable.

Standards may be mandatory (M), "other-than-mandatory" (O), or not applicable (N/A). Standards that deal with life, health, safety issues, and legal matters are mandatory. Standards dealing with important or desirable law enforcement requirements or with exemplary activities are classified as other-than mandatory. Standards not required of agencies because of their size are classified as not applicable.

Agency size is defined as the total number of authorized full-time personnel (sworn and non-sworn). The four agency-size categories are A (1-24), B (25-74), C (75-299), and D (300 or more). Naperville Police Department is a "C" size.

What is an example of a single standard?

Examples of two standards in Chapter 1 are 1.2.2: "A written directive defines the legal authority to carry and use weapons by agency personnel in the performance of their duties" and 1.2.3: "A written directive governs procedures for assuring compliance with all applicable constitutional requirements, including: a. interviews; b. interrogations; and c. access to counsel."**

You may notice that in the Commission's view, the requirements in each standard provide a description of "WHAT" must be accomplished (e.g., a written directive) by the applicant agency, but allows that agency wide latitude in determining "HOW" it will achieve its compliance with each standard. This approach allows independence and is the key to understanding the universal nature and flexibility of the standards approved by the Commission for this manual. The burden of proof is on the agency during on-site assessment to verify compliance. There is also a presumption on the part of the Commission that agencies operate in compliance with their written directives.

Which standard would be applicable to the March 11, 2005 shootings in Fulton County Courthouse (Atlanta) and escape of the prisoner?

There are a number of chapters that would be involved there, including standards governing tactical response for an unusual incident (Chapter 46) and use of force and firearms against the individual when he was apprehended at the site (Chapter 1). There would probably be between at least five and ten standards in the CALEA manual that would apply to the situation.

How about standards relevant to guarding a detainee?

In the court room? That would be a court function (Chapter 73). Naperville Police Department does not have a court facility attached to it. We do have a detention center, which is governed by another chapter. Jail and court are different. We have a jail but we don't have a court. Any standard that applies to courts, court facilities and supervision of prisoners within a court process would NOT apply to us. The standards applying to a jail and detention WOULD apply to us.

Can you give an example of a standard relating to detaining a prisoner in your detention center?

That would be in Chapter 72: "Holding Facilities." This is the largest chapter in the manual. The standards in this chapter are applicable to law enforcement agencies that have holding facilities under their control for the short term custody of detainees, usually 72 hours or less, between the time a person is arrested and the occasion of their first judicial appearance. These standards are not applied to facilities operated as a jail or other correctional institution whose primary purpose is to house detainees for periods exceeding 72 hours. Specific sections of this chapter address management, physical plant, safety and sanitation, security and control, detainee processing, medical and health care services, and detainee rights.

Are there standards relating to safely moving prisoners from one area to another?

That would be Chapter 71: "Prisoner Transportation." Standards in this chapter address procedures for transporting persons in the custody of the agency immediately after arrest, prior to booking, holding or transfer to another facility; and movement of prisoners from one detention facility to another, to the hospital, to court, or elsewhere. Specific standards govern the use of handcuff s and restraining devices and require that vehicles used to transport prisoners be searched before and after each trip, things that, if followed, should prevent or significantly reduce the possibility that a problem will occur.

Do representatives from CALEA come to Naperville for the reaccreditation review?

Yes. Our next onsite review is August 2006 and, hopefully, we will be awarded reaccreditation at the CALEA conference in November 2006. CALEA holds three conferences each year in different parts of the country, where it awards either initial accreditations or reaccreditations to agencies earning those designations within the previous three months.

Who from your department would attend this conference?

For reaccreditation, the chief of police and I would go, and perhaps also the mayor or the city manager. Because I am in charge of accreditation here, I attend one conference each year. The trips provide very useful knowledge and the opportunity to network with other accreditation managers at other agencies. I find out how they are solving problems. It's a very beneficial experience. The next conference I will attend is in July 2005 in Boston.

Does CALEA have other accreditation programs besides accrediting police agencies?

Yes. CALEA has five programs: the Law Enforcement Agency Accreditation Program, the Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program, the Recognition Program (for smaller agencies), the Public Safety Training Academy Accreditation Program, and the Alliance Program. The Training Academy Accreditation Program governs training schools, such as College of DuPage's Suburban Law Enforcement Academy, which offers a 400-hour basic law enforcement course. We send people we hire, who do not have any previous police experience, to this academy to learn basic law enforcement skills. Then they come back to the agency and we fine tune their training with our own policies and procedures. State, county, and other police training academies can be accredited through CALEA. Jails that are independent of law enforcement agencies can also be accredited by CALEA.

What are benefits to the community of your police department being accredited by the Commission?

We often cite five benefits. First, adherence to law enforcement standards reinforces public confidence in police departments much the same as it does for hospitals, universities, and other professional services. Second, written policies and procedures mandated by accreditation demonstrate that the law enforcement agency intends to be responsive to and protect the rights of the community. Third, members of the public are provided with a general unbiased evaluation of the department, providing them with a standard by which they can measure their police department against other agencies. Fourth, accreditation is an open process, as the agency's employees and the general public are offered opportunities to comment personally and by letter on the agency's compliance with applicable standards. Fifth, accreditation demands accountability within the agency, to the community it serves, and to local government officials.

There are also benefits of accreditation to the agency and the police officer, including nationwide recognition of professional excellence, community understanding and support, proactive management systems, documentation of policies and procedures, reduction of liability litigations, and access to the latest law enforcement practices. In addition, accreditation assures all departmental personnel that its personnel system is in compliance with a nationwide standard ensuring that it is both fair and equitable. Finally, accreditation enhances the morale of department personnel, builds personnel confidence in effectiveness and efficiency of the department, and makes a statement to other law enforcement agencies, professionals and the community that the Naperville Police Department meets the highest level of standards and professionalism.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Department (965 personnel), Fulton County Police Department (367 personnel), and Fulton County Marshal's Department (75 personnel) have been CALEA accredited since 2000, 1987, and 1995, respectively. If these agencies are accredited, how did the prisoner escape and kill four people, including the judge and others on March 11, 2005?

One of the purposes of accreditation is to reduce or eliminate the possibility of mistakes happening. I don't know what happened in that situation so I wouldn't comment. It should probably be looked at. Accreditation does not guarantee elimination of errors. People are human and make mistakes. I don't know in Fulton County if it was a mistake or a procedure that wasn't followed or if it was a loophole that nobody thought of to cover in a procedure.

What would you do here in Naperville if a similar thing happened?

We would certainly review all of our procedures to make sure that they were followed. If all of our procedures were followed, it is unlikely that this would have happened to begin with. When a prisoner is brought into a detention area, there is a shakedown area where he or she is thoroughly searched. The officers who are handling the prisoner get rid of their weapons in a secured area prior to having any contact with the prisoner. We have policy directed by CALEA that says the first thing an officer does when he or she gets out of the car is to secure weapon(s) (gun, baton, etc.) in a lockbox on the wall in the garage where he or she drives in, and place the lockbox key in his or her pocket.

That's what happened, I think, the prisoner allegedly assaulted the officer, removed the key from her pocket, and used it to open the lockbox and retrieve the gun.

We have a policy that says that the officer will be accompanied by another officer when they're doing a search. Should a prisoner escape in the facility, we have policies governing what to do, such as calling in a special response team. After the incident was over, we would review all policies to make sure that they were followed and then review for changes that may be necessary.

If such a thing happened here, would you and CALEA be interacting specifically over the event, much like hospital accrediting bodies do when a "sentinel" event occurs in a hospital or on its property?

CALEA would offer help or guidance if asked to do so, but we would have to first ask them. I am not aware of any procedure that CALEA would have to follow up with the accredited agency if the adverse event became known. Each accredited law enforcement agency has to submit an annual report to CALEA and an incident like what happened in Fulton County would have to be reported on the annual report. Standards that the agency is not in compliance with must be reported on the annual report. So CALEA would become aware of the incident through the law enforcement agency's own self-reporting mechanism. Now when the agency comes up for accreditation the next time, the incident will probably be at the top of the list. CALEA surveyors will want to know what the agency did about it and be satisfied by what the agency did about it in order to make a positive reaccreditation decision.

Maybe only one officer is in attendance with a prisoner (when there should be two) more often than we know and the Fulton County incident only became known because there was so much carnage. Is there any way for you and other accredited agencies to learn from the important experiences of other agencies?

CALEA doesn't necessarily provide that kind of information to us. But the International Association of Chiefs of Police has built a website and developed written materials to describe such incidents, that is, what happened. CALEA's function is to make sure that standards fit. Something like what happened in Fulton County occurs raises CALEA's awareness level. CALEA will look at all the standards that apply in the situation to see if something needs to be changed. If they find that a standard needs revision, the next edition of the manual will contain the revised standard.

Is it advisable to wait until the next edition of the manual to learn about the revised standard?

Modifications to standards come out during CALEA conferences three times per year. So there is a mechanism for alerting police agencies about significant issues. The International Association of Chiefs of Police is also good at notifying chiefs about incidents, which the chiefs are expected to disseminate to their own personnel.

Sources:
*For more information on CALEA, go to www.calea.org.
**CALEA Standard Statements available at: http://www.calea.org/newweb/state%20accred/calea_standard_statement.htm.
http://www.calea.org/newweb/accreditation%20Info/descriptions_of_standards_approv.htm

City of Naperville to Focus on Emergency Management Readiness at National FEMA Course

This dialogue occurred between Naperville (Illinois) Emergency Manager Pete Smith* and Margaret O’Leary on March 21, 2005, and has been edited for publication.

Please describe the upcoming City of Naperville event with FEMA.

In June 2005 between 70 and 75 staff from the City of Naperville and selected community partners will be attending FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Emergency Management Institute’s “Integrated Emergency Management Course” (IEMC) at FEMA’s national facility in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The course, which FEMA has offered on a competitive basis to community applicants since 1982, places public officials and emergency personnel in a realistic crisis situation within a structured learning environment. We’re proud to have been selected for this grant because only a limited number are awarded each year. The course is four and a half days long.

FEMA’s national facility in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

75 people are going—that’s a lot, isn’t it?

A group of seventy-five people is the maximum size that FEMA can accommodate in this course. Because we will have 70-75 people attending, four FEMA IEMC staff visited Naperville two weeks ago for two days to familiarize themselves with our community. They will use that information to design valid and challenging scenarios for us when we visit them in June.

Who, for example, will be attending from the Naperville group?

When FEMA approved Naperville for participating in this course, it recommended that we look at our community partners and invite a number of them who would be participating with us if there was a real emergency. Right now, the mayor and two city council members, the city manager’s office staff, and many of the city’s department heads and assistant department heads will be attending. We have focused on inviting staff who would have a role in Naperville’s Emergency Operating Center (EOC) in an emergency situation. Thus, high-ranking fire, police, public utilities, transportation and engineering, and public works department officers will be going, as well as the city attorney, human resources head, information technology director, finance director and me as the city’s emergency manager. Community partners include officials from Will and DuPage County Emergency Management Agencies, DuPage County Sheriff’s Office, DuPage County Health Department, DuPage County Coroner’s Office, and Tellabs (emergency manager). In addition, two senior emergency physicians (assistant medical director and EMS medical director) from Edward Hospital, and a reporter and photographer from the “Naperville Sun” newspaper will be attending. We have also extended invitations to Naperville School Districts 203 and 204 and American Red Cross, among others.

Will participants act in their usual city and community roles during the FEMA activities?

Yes. For the most part, the people who are attending the course both from inside and outside the city will be performing the functions they would be expected to perform in a real disaster. Some of our people will act as facilitators and work with FEMA IEMC staff to make sure that scenarios are realistic. The “Naperville Sun” staff will cover the experience as embedded news staff, as well as play the media role during scenarios.

What is the benefit of participating in a course like this?

The whole idea is to go there, receive the training, exercise our capabilities and learn from what we’re doing. Whenever you do these types of exercises, they’re never perfect, but you don’t want them to be perfect because, if they were, you wouldn’t learn anything. There is no such thing as a perfect exercise no matter how good you are. We’ll bring the information home that we learn during the exercise. The people who have gone through this experience together should all be on the same page. The course will be a fertile ground for building on what we already have. We hope to take some new ideas home with us to improve on some things that we’ve already done.

Who’ll run the city while you’re gone?

Senior department heads and senior staff will be remaining to run the city.

Have any participants ever gone before?

Several individuals from county governments previously have attended. All of them were very excited to be invited to go again. They spoke very highly of the program having gone through it before. It’s special to go through the program.

Who are the IEMC instructors?

They’re experienced FEMA staff members who collectively have many years in the emergency management field developing, conducting, and evaluating disaster and special event exercises for federal, state, and local governments, private industry, and airports. For some aspects of training that we’ll receive, they’ll bring in additional experts from, say, the Department of Homeland Security or the fire service.

Source:

* For more on Pete Smith, see Securitas January/February 2004 available at: http://www.semp.us/securitas/2004janfeb.html.

** For more information on the FEMA Emergency Management Institute Integrated Emergency Management Course, visit: http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/IEMC/.