David Dickerson, a Strategic National Stockpile Coordinator at the Texas Department of State Health Services, has made available a set of resources for POD planning. In particular these tools are designed to help educate and recruit volunteers. You can access the resources at the following URL: www.snstools.info by using the user name “sns” and the password “tools” (note: Mr. Dickerson has given me permission to post this information).
In addition to brochures and posters to recruit volunteers, there is a large (10 MB), animated Powerpoint presentation that describes the SNS and PODs, when they would be used, and their operations. There are computer-generated videos and images of what a POD might look like if the whole thing (including a station for watching an educational video) were setup in a typical high school gymnasium, which was interesting because some jurisdictions plan to use many different rooms within a school. I’m not sure it would work very well in a gym due to possible congestion problems. But it is useful as a demonstration.
In general, the whole site is easy to use and navigate. I’m sure that public health planners around the country can benefit from these resources.
