Keith Hansen, MBA, discussing the history of the Center for Preparedness Education

4 January 2023

Keith Hansen: The Center for Preparedness Education is the group that was started shortly after September 11th when the bioterrorism funds came out. Early on, that organization was responsible for training and education in Nebraska for public health, for healthcare, but it was primarily around bioterrorism. We did a lot with these seven agents—anthrax, smallpox, tularemia—the seven category A agents. A lot of education on that. Early on, we were fairly focused on the bio part of it. Since then, we've become more focused on the preparedness part of it. Doesn't matter if it's a tornado or hurricane or whatever it is, a lot of those principles apply. If you have to evacuate a hospital for a fire or a shooter, doesn't matter. It's the same evacuation, right? You still have to move patients. So we broadened our definition quite a bit, but our job is to work with planning and training and exercising healthcare and public health in Nebraska.
Darby Kurtz: So with the Center for Preparedness Education, are you often coordinating with Nebraska Health and Human Services?
KH: Absolutely. That's where a significant part of our funding comes from. So for example, we're work—I'm currently working on an exercise with them that we will do with Nebraska Health and Human Services and Nebraska public health departments and what we call organizations that represent access and functional needs populations here in the state. We work quite closely with them, because it's their job to identify what the priorities are for the state and that's our job to help execute that.

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Special Collections and Archives