Summit County Health Director Phil Bondurant says anytime there’s an emergency declaration, it’s a good practice to follow up with an after action report.
“And what that does,” Bondurant said, “is highlight the successes, highlight the partnerships that were made. But it also finds those areas where we maybe could have done a little better or where a different solution might have been more appropriate. And so, with the ending of the emergency declaration, or the termination, we are now out of that emergency situation. And it would make sense that we would initiate that after action report.”
He expects to have the report completed in the next few months. It will be presented to the Board of Health, the Summit County Council and to the Council of Governments — a body that includes the Park City and East Side mayors.
While the report will be done in-house, Bondurant says it makes sense to bring on an outside consultant to ensure transparency since the report will assess how the department performed. With 20-20 hindsight, he believes there are some areas that could have been improved.
“I think we could have communicated the masking order that went into effect with the omicron surge to our municipal partners a little bit better,” Bondurant said. “I will admit that I waited until the very last moment before having that conversation. We definitely did not want to end up back in masks. But when we started to see cases pop up in law enforcement and our fire department and dispatch and our paramedic services, and then you throw in drivers and transit and everybody else, something had to be done.”
Looking ahead at new projects to tackle, Bondurant says he and his staff are working on a new vision statement which will reflect a focus on health equity.
“Health equity is not about making sure that everybody has the resources, it's about making sure everybody has the right resources for their situation. So, to me, the best description is if you have four people and you have one person that's a little bit shorter, one person that's a little bit taller, one person has a disability, and one person isn't as developed, you can't give them all the same size bicycle, because they're unable to ride that bike. A tall person can't ride a short person bike, a short person can't ride a tall person bike. But if you look at each of their individual needs and provide them with the bike that best fits their needs, then they're all able to participate in that activity and ride a bike.”
Bondurant says public health will follow environmental health’s lead. Environmental health, he says, ensures that everyone has quality water to drink and healthy air to breathe, no matter where they live. A health equity coordinator he says is now on staff at the health department and will be driving this equity conversation.
