RANSON, W.Va. – Lawrence "Jeff" Jefferies, RN, emergency department clinical coordinator and interim disaster preparedness coordinator at West Virginia University Hospitals-East’s Jefferson Memorial Hospital, was recently selected to represent the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) at a national disaster preparedness workshop in Washington, DC, held on August 3 and 4.
Sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, the two-day workshop focused on rural mass casualty response. Attendees included physicians, nurses, public health officials and other medical professionals from across the country. Discussions provided participants an opportunity to examine the current capabilities and future opportunities to improve integrated mass casualty response in rural settings.
“I was able to network with other medical professionals who work in rural hospitals,” Jefferies said. “By attending the workshop, I gained more insight into all of the potential challenges of disaster preparedness for the small rural hospital and the communities they serve,” he added.
According to Jefferies, participants learned about opportunities to improve response capabilities in rural settings, approaches to improve the capability of the EMS system to respond to large-scale rural incidents, and ways to improve the integration and coordination with public health systems to address challenges to national public health security in rural settings.
Jefferies has been a member of the ENA for 25 years and has served on the nominations committee for the National ENA for the past three years. He stated, “It was an honor to be selected to represent the Emergency Nurses Association and Jefferson Memorial Hospital at the conference.”
Lawrence "Jeff" Jefferies, RN