Hey there — I’m Emily Jarvis — the DorobekINSIDER Producer — I am filling in for Chris while he is out on vacation.
But while he’s away we couldn’t leave you hanging so I’ve compiled some of my favorite interviews from the past four months.
Today we are going to talk about the Service to America Medal Award Medals. Every year I look forward to the Sammies season — because they are like the Oscars for federal workers. The Partnership for Public Service’s awards highlight feds from across the government who are really making a difference in their field.
During the summer months Chris gets to talk to one of the finalists each week. And so far we’ve talked to some really passionate and smart feds. But Dr. H. Allen Dobbs is in a league all of his one.
Dr. Dobbs revolutionized the world of disaster medicine. As the Chief Medical officer for the National Disaster Medical Systems at the Department of Health and Human Services, Dobbs worked to significantly improve the way disaster victims receive heathcare. He created an electronic system to track those receiving treatment and assign emergency medical teams to assess emerging threats. That work has made him a Service to America Medal Finalist. The Oscars for feds. He told me how he got started at HHS.
“We have unique challenges. Logistics for providing healthcare are very different. We are always there at the request of a State or Country so we have to integrate with local providers and entities,” said Dobbs.
Why go digital? When Katrina hit the National Disaster Medical Systems faced 164,000 paper patient records. “We have little patient continuity. Trying to find patient records in the middle of a disaster is a disaster itself,” said Dobb, “we wanted real time information.”
In Haiti:National Disaster Medical Systems deployed electronic healthcare systems via satellites. “In real times we knew the types of injuries, age distribution, we knew the medical resources we would need. We could save lives in the short term and long term,” said Dobbs.
DorobekINSIDER interviews the SAMMIES
- Physicist and Sammies Finalist Explains Hi-Tech Advances in Medicical Imaging and Data-Transfer
- 40 Years at the IRS — How one fed lends tax assistance to low income households
- Sammies Finalist Helps CreateVisibility for Our Women Veterans
- Trouble Abroad: Who Ya’ Gonna Call? Sammies Finalist Michelle Bernier-Toth!
- How one feds is making inroads on nuclear proliferation and is big data a fad or something more?
- Are you being bullied? One SAMMIES finalist is one the case — meet Deborah Temkin