Nevada County Emergency Preparedness

Healthcare Coalition Newsletter

April 2025 | Issue #1

News from the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Program

Hello Partners! The PHEP team has been busy these past few months, finishing up our warehouse refresh, a few grant-required deliverables and beginning a slew of coalition-focused plans that will help us focus better on our information sharing efforts, how we manage our resources and plans for continued operations during a disaster. We have been enjoying spring and the breath of fresh air it brings before another emergency preparedness season begins!

Measles Exercise

We recently facilitated a timely tabletop exercise with our Department Operations Center (DOC) team, focused on responding to a measles case, and how we might best support our staff and community here at Public Health. Exercises like this always help us to learn more about how we work as a team and how we each bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. Much like our Health Care Coalition - we are mightier together, than alone!

Continuing Education

Our “always on the move” Program Analyst, Brett Fletcher, will be attending the Preparedness Summit, in San Antonio, Texas this week. This summit is hosted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and “features experts from the healthcare and emergency management fields in addition to public health preparedness professionals to address the gaps between these life-saving industries in an effort to work more collaboratively and efficiently in the face of emerging threats” (www.preparednesssummit.org). We’re going to miss him but can’t wait to hear about his great take aways from the summit!

Radio System Test

We’re looking forward to the next few months, as our days seems to transition from planning to actual preparation, looking ahead to summer and fire season. One important piece of this preparation is utilizing our new and improved radio system. Many of our coalition partners participated in our ongoing radio system update and will, in a few weeks, participate in a county-wide radio test. We’re excited to continue this radio system upgrade in Eastern County over the next year.

Coalition News

Cybersecurity Assessment

Partners have been working behind the scenes to help the EP HCC complete our Cybersecurity Assessment. While preparing for a cyberthreat is not always the most glamorous way to spend your time, we all know how important it is to be proactive in our planning and education on cybersecurity.

We’re proud to report that 14 coalition partners have completed the assessment, with more coming in daily. We encourage you all to submit this assessment by the end of this week. The PHEP team will be analyzing the results and sharing those out with the coalition in the coming months.

As a follow up, we wanted to share a great resource to use when preparing your organization for cyberthreats. The Department of Health and Human Services has created a set of performance goals to “help healthcare organizations prioritize implementation of high-impact cybersecurity practices”. Take a look or share with your organization’s cybersecurity team.

Smartsheet for the win!

Thanks for continuing to update your organization’s contact information through our contact update requests via Smartsheet. Smartsheet is a data collection tool we have adopted to make data requests easier for everyone! We appreciate having the up-to-date information, so we are ready to support each other during a community emergency.

National PHEP News

Measles Response

Measles continues to make news as the number of new cases rises each day. As of April 24, 2025 - there are 884 confirmed cases of measles in the US, with Texas and New Mexico having the majority of cases (CDC Measles Dashboard). Texas is hurrying to keep up, as we all saw in our COVID responses - it’s much easier to be proactive, than reactive. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible.

As reported in the Texas Tribune, “suddenly standing up a measles response takes a huge amount of time and effort from state and local health authorities” (read full article here).

As of April 28, 2025, in California, there have been 10 confirmed cases of measles, all related to travel.

For guidance from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and to see the number of cases by county, click HERE.

Outreach and Education

There have been no cases of measles in Nevada County this year, but our Communicable Disease (CD) and Immunizations (IZ) teams have been proactively working to educate our schools, childcare providers and broader community.

For easy-to-read resources to support you and your family, or the people you serve, in the prevention and treatment of measles in our community, please visit our Nevada County Public Health - Communicable Disease informational page, HERE.

Partner Spotlight

We’re excited to highlight the amazing work that our partners do every day to support preparedness in Nevada County!

For our first shoutout, we’d like to introduce you to the team from Spring Hill Manor - Convalescent & Rehabilitation Hospital:

The dynamic team at Spring Hill Manor serves patients with care and compassion in this 86-bed, 5-star facility. Matt Webster, the new Administrator, as of December 2025, tells us that they are focused on a general investment in the facility, as we move into warmer temps and fire season. They have been focused on improving patient transportation equipment, additional fire alarm devices and system upgrades, and communication and network upgrades.

Spring Hill Manor recently changed ownership and with that move, acquired a large support system. The new owner, Cypress Hospital Group (based in Roseville), owns 12 other facilities in the greater Sacramento area. Having sister organizations to lean on during an emergency has a been a great addition to the already strong team at Spring Hill.

Matt’s preparedness team, pictured above, also includes their Infection Preventionist, Alisha Sims. He also shared that they are proud to have such tenured staff on their team, including Dorothy Kishiyama (pictured above), who has been at this facility for 30 years! Having a strong team to lean on during a disaster is always a great place to be - thanks for letting us visit, Matt!

Future Happenings

• May 7: Nevada County Redundant Communications Drill (by invitation only) - Hosted by NC PHEP Team

• Do you have a preparedness event that you’d like to share with the coalition? Just send us a quick email and we’ll share it in our next newsletter: [email protected]