CESSA - Region 2 Committee Meeting Approved Minutes 04/10/2024

Community Emergency Services and Support Act (CESSA) Region 2 Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes- April 10, 2024 - 1:00 pm via Teams

Meeting Minutes - Approved by Members 09/11/2024

  • Call to Order/Introductions
    • Call meeting to Order by Dennis Duke at 1:02 PM
    • Attendees:
      • Via MS Teams: Dennis Duke, Brian Murphy, Zachary Gittrich (proxy Pooja Nagpal), Jamal Simington, Sarah Scruggs, Rhonda Flegel, Jodi Mahoney, Matthew Jackson, Sarah Stasik, Meghan Moser, Darren Gault, Travis Noyd, Latricia Seye (proxy Jessica Gimeno), Brandon Miller-Gus, Donald Miskowiec & Latricia Seye
    • Absences
      • Michael Barr, Christopher Watkins, Wayne Gallops, Allen Haeffner, Steve Delis, Luke Tomsha, Anthony Walraven, Michael Daley, Imad Khan, Ryan Beck, Julie Lewis
    • Guests:
      • Brenda Hampton, Bobby Leebold, Mike Epping, Chris Webster
  • Open Meetings Act - Read and notified meeting is being recorded.
  • Approval of Minutes
    • February 14, 2024 Minutes - were approved as submitted.
      • Motion by Member Brian Murphy, second by Jodi Mahoney
      • Motion Approved by all members present
    • Next RAC Region 2 meeting will be June 12, 2024 at 1:00 PM
  • State Updates - Brenda Hampton
    • Brenda Hampton shared state updates as follows:
      • RAC 2 Summit on March 27th was provided by Dennis Duke, Co-Chair and Chief Darren Gault who done a phenomenal job in convening that audience. Was very encouraged by the discussion and look forward to see where this planning process goes moving forward.
      • House Bill 5377 and 5378 passed out of the committee, will go towards vote of one of those bills extends CESSA for another year. The other bill changes the language of CESSA that allows for other then an EMS Medical Director to serve as Co-Chair. Hopeful both the bills will pass.
      • Forum June 11th held in Chicago "The Crisis Continuum in Illinois - Knowledge Innovation and Action" - both Dennis Duke and Chief Gault agreed to be presenters at this forum. More information will be forthcoming.
      • Script and Vendor Update - there is work that is continuing with Power Phone. We do not have their information back yet on their script changes, anticipate it will be coming soon. Power Phone is one of the 911 vendors that we are in process of trying to change their script so that 911 will be able to send those low-level risk calls to 988 and also to the mobile crisis response teams. The work has been completed with Power Phone and now their reviewing those changes. A one-day meeting on May 8th will be held with Priority Dispatch and it's going to be a through the same process as Power Phone to get their script changes. Priority Dispatch is the larger venue for the 911 call centers.
      • Joint SAC Membership & RAC Co-Chair meeting is scheduled for May 13th.
      • Dennis Duke commented good news on the extension to likely be approved until July 2025…questioned the way it's written will that be a full implementation of the CESSA statute or is that still to be decided.
      • Brenda Hampton responded the initial due date for implementation was January of 2023, then extended to July of 2023 and now going to July 2025. This is a lot of work and all we can do is evaluate the work at that point in time and don't know what's going to happen after July 2025. We will have to look at that when we get there.
      • Dennis Duke commented with it being such a heavy lift and priority dispatch being the largest across the state is a huge undertaking just to get Power Phone up and going. When you think about priority dispatch and other vendors, it may be extended beyond July of 2025, but doesn't mean we stop doing what we're doing to prepare. How many priority dispatch entities do we have.
      • Brenda Hampton responded between 38 and 40 statewide. Region 2 only has 1 in Canton.
      • Brian Murphy shared from Cindy Barbera-Brelle in 2022 sent the PSAP representatives a list of all the systems and who their EMD protocol provider is we had 11. Being from Woodford County we use priority dispatch.
      • Brenda Hampton responded the list is wrong and she would follow up with Dr. Mary Smith.
      • Dennis Duke responded we'll help to update that list as a number of people are sending in their priority dispatch. Angie Clark will help collect the information and follow up with Brenda. Another question regarding legislation expanding the role of Co-Chair and Chair beyond the EMS Medical Directors and the rational for that. To clarify many of them are working and filling shifts within their ED. Is there going to be any specific limitations to who that is, do we have to target a specific type of individual or can it be a Chief Medical Officer of a Health System, Public Health Director or what are the specifics on that.
      • Brenda Hampton responded she will follow up on this and get back on this.
  • RAC 2 Summit Update
    • Dennis Duke shared the Summit meeting packet will be sent out to the RAC 2 members with the intent to provide the ability to use it as a guide for your hyperlocal meetings to be arranged. A high-level review of the Summit was shared noting a fantastic turnout from all sectors including law enforcement, EMS, hospital leadership, 590 providers all with leadership present. To put into perspective and provide a realistic view of the changes coming and it generated a healthy debate and maybe some uncomfortableness in the room, but it generated a lot of good discussion and put things in perspective about what the change really means. Further shared the plan going forward is to host quarterly hyperlocal meetings, again trying to keep leadership of all various sectors engaged on the work and updated of the changes happening at the state level.
    • Chief Darren Gault shared it was a great turnout with just under 60 members from the QC Region attended. He will send out a checklist of the things that he and Dennis recommend that you do. The first thing members will want to do of their area is prepare an inventory of your agency leadership. That took quite a while to gather that information. You can go on the 708 Mental Health Boards, 590 mental health providers and hospital systems to look in your area. You'll need to identify leaders like Chief Medical Officers, Director of Emergency Medical Services, EMS coordinators, Police, Sheriff and Fire departments, ambulance providers, Public Safety answering points and PSAPs in your area. While you build the agency leadership directory, then determine the size and define a venue that is equipped with proper A/V equipment and provide refreshments. We also decided to use a registration system ran through our website in Moline that helped to ensure attendance. We did not invite members of the Public; it was restricted to practitioners in this area to have policy and practice discussions. Now, we have a good database of contacts in our area, then developed a flyer and QR codes and pushed that registration link out. It helped to have a couple of different people sending the registration link out. Then identified our agenda and PowerPoint and a brief handout. Further shared the most concerned people are the ambulance and EMS service as this is a major culture change for them and right behind that are the PSAPs. Those are the two areas that are going to see the most culture/practice change and potentially increase in workload/burden and will need to calm their fears. We were transparent that you need to start preparing for this. Overall, the message is this is not an if this is a when and you may only have a little over a year to prepare for it. Our theme was to plant the seed today so we can continue to grow the plans as we go forward. We're trying to do this incremental change starting with mentality that this will change how EMS responds and how they're going to deal with this in the field. Lastly, advised to make sure you have someone that's fairly skilled at running meetings and public presentations as you need to have someone who can regain control of the room should it get to be a challenge.
    • Jessica Gimeno questioned you had stakeholders present at the hyperlocal meeting: including EMTs, PSAPs, law enforcement and fire, anyone else?
    • Chief Gault responded yes, 708 Mental Health Boards, 590 mental health providers that service your area, hospital system representatives (president, Chief Medical Officer, Director of Emergency Services, EMS coordinators and ambulance providers, etc.) whoever is going to lead your hyperlocal team needs to start that inventory process. Suggested first step is putting together an inventory and it's a big challenge to gather the inventory of all the players.
    • Brandon Miller-Gus inquired how it was determined who were the players in your hyperlocal meeting. What did you use as a boundary.
    • Chief Gault started in Quad Cities, and it was manual task - identified the hospital systems and the PSAPs in the region we cover, then worked from there a little more granular. The general categories: 708 mental health boards, 590 providers, hospital systems, police, sheriffs, fire departments, PSAPs and ambulance providers are your categories and then use whatever resources you have available to make your inventory to identify those players. You could probably use agency boundaries in the map layers for those PSAPs.
    • Dennis Duke we'll send out the materials and registration lists to help you understand the groups of how we were able to assemble that. The PowerPoint and a template of bulleted list from Chief Gault that Angie C. will send out. One of the most important things to begin with is identify who will be leading these meetings and that they have some leadership touch within your communities. Doesn't have to be limited to two people developing this. Just ensure who assembles have some leadership touch within their communities.
    • Chief Gault shared we watched the categories daily and if one of the categories wasn't represented for the meeting, we reached out to them via phone to help get them registered. Just sending out a link will get you about 70% participation. The other part is the uncomfortable conversations that you will have ambulance drivers, you will want to be well versed to handle those conversations. Angie Clark shared there were several that I helped to get registered as well.
    • Jessica Gimeno inquired if this was in person.
    • Chief Gault responded you wouldn't want to do this virtual. We didn't offer it to be virtual.
    • Dennis Duke inquired of any other questions. Further noted we'll be sending information out to you later today.
  • Pilot Project Update
    • Dennis Duke provided a brief update on the following:
      • Project Scope for noting the only Power Phone PSAP was McDonough and Schuyler County, they agreed to participate and did get formal board approval so that is continuing to move forward.
      • Project Scope as a reminder is focused on Level I of the RLM and redirection of the 911 calls that would be redirected to 988 and 590 providers.
      • Vendor scripting, Brenda mentioned there is still some work to do for Power Phone, so before our project moves any further along, we're waiting for those script changes to come forward.
    • Any questions about our Pilot Project - none noted.
  • Next Steps:
    • Trainings and Scheduling of the training for PSAPs, 988 and 911 providers. Brenda Hampton shared the trainings will be in to the Training Coordinator by the 15th and she will compile that feedback and will have a report out. There is nothing to she could share at this point.
    • Next meeting: Due to a pause with the new information coming forward and to manage deadlines, a motioned to hold bi-monthly meetings and not schedule meetings on a monthly basis to make myself and Chief Gault available to other regions who are preparing how their going to set up their Hyperlocal meetings. We would make ourselves available to you in lieu of holding a formal RAC 2 meeting. Please reach out to Angie Clark who can assist in arranging meetings to help coordinate meetings with your Hyperlocal area, Dennis Duke and Chief Gault.
  • Questions from the Committee
    • Brian Murphy re: Hyperlocal meetings do we know if we have coverage in the entire region for someone to help setting these up. Is someone in our RAC associated with Star County or is it just going to fall under our umbrella.
    • Dennis Duke who is 590 providers for Star County.
    • Jody Mahoney responded it's North Central Behavioral Health Systems. Question we have is how big of a scope do you go with Hyperlocal meetings as we have 7 counties we cover.
    • Dennis Duke within your county you may have a LaSalle/Peru or Macomb Hyperlocal or multiple Hyperlocal.
    • Chief Gault responded concern about making it too big - larger than 60 could get away from you pretty easy.
    • Brian Murphy shared most of the EMS providers in my county are under Peoria area EMS System the 590 provider is also in another county. So when does it become too big or when do we have an EMS Director or 590 provider having to go to multiple Hyperlocal meetings. Bigger concern is making sure we do not miss anyone. Is there a way we can take a look at the region map and make sure everyone is accounted for or if we need to contact and designate someone or if we need to contact people who are not on our RAC and leave that up to their local jurisdictions and who would be responsible for that.
    • Sara Scruggs responded maybe we can look at each county covered in our region and send something out to the group and we can provide feedback as members of this committee we feel we can facilitate on those counties that are within close proximity to us and see where the gaps are to address case by case. North Central and Aruka have over lapping counties but also unique counties also. Maybe we could focus on the unique counties first and then divide up the over lapping counties for which we provide 590 services.
    • Chief Gault consider evaluating the hospital system in your area. Maybe designate someone in the RAC to do a landscape analysis of the EMS service to see when a call comes into this area what EMS service is the primary jurisdiction and then build out from there.
    • Brandon Miller-Gus provided chat response to use the PSAPs or 911 system as a guide to look at these Hyperlocal meetings. Also we can use EMS systems as well.
    • Dennis Duke great questions none with easy answer. Looking at the hospitals and building out from there and then maybe putting a group together that would serve our RAC that would include a 590 provider(s), EMS, Law Enforcement and someone from the PSAPs to help look at how were going to divide our RAC into Hyperlocals. Not looking for volunteers now, but if you're interested, please send your interest to Angie to help to formulate the group to serve the whole RAC.
    • Brian Murphy provided a chat response great idea.
    • Jessica Gimeno provided a chat response not to forget to include people with lived experience. I appreciate the insight on organizing hyper locality.
  • Schedule Remaining RAC Meeting
    • Next RAC 2 Meeting Date: Not scheduled - due to canceling May 8th meeting to allow group facilitation of Hyperlocal meetings. For those that want assistance on how to organize these Hyperlocal meetings, please remember that Dennis Duke and Chief Gault can be a resource for that. We need our group to assemble to define our hyperlocal regions and how we are going to get those established then we can sit down together to brainstorm the implementation and development of those meetings.
    • The ask to members as leaders in the community to maintain an urgency on the implementation of CESSA, but also keeping people informed and pacing the work appropriately. That will be our challenge to pace it to keep people engaged. We see some parts of the sector drifting away from the urgency of CESSA because it keeps getting extended. The ask is to provide the messaging appropriately and leadership around that and in alignment of how the state is having us do the work.
  • ? Open for Public Comment - No Comments Noted.
  • ? Motion to Adjourn the meeting by Darren Gault and seconded by Sarah Scruggs.
  • ? Meeting was Adjourned at 1:57 PM.