Press Release
April 23, 2007
Contact: Jerry Carey
Phone: (856) 566-6171
careyge@umdnj.edu
UMDNJ Faculty Serves on New State Advisory Board
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NEW BRUNSWICK / PISCATAWAY — Four faculty members from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey are among those picked to serve on the Health Emergency Preparedness Advisory Council (HEPAC) recently established by Dr. Fred M. Jacobs, the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Two of those UMDNJ faculty members will fill the roles of chair and vice-chair of the 52-member council that has been charged with the responsibility of supporting continued enhancements to New Jersey’s all-hazards approach to health systems preparedness and public health response.
Dr. Jeffrey Hammond, of Bernardsville, is HEPAC’s chairman and represents the American College of Surgeons on the council. Dr. Hammond is also a professor of Surgery at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
Dr. Glenn Paulson, of New Brunswick, is the associate dean for Research at the UMDNJ-School of Public Health and the director of the school’s New Jersey Center for Public Health Preparedness (NJCPHP). Dr. Paulson is the vice chair of HEPAC.
The remaining HEPAC members from UMDNJ are Dr. Steven Marcus, of Montville, executive director of the New Jersey Poison Information & Education System and a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and the Department of Pediatrics at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School; and Dr. George DiFerdinando, of Princeton, an adjunct professor of Epidemiology at UMDNJ-School of Public Health and the center coordinator of NJCPHP. Dr. DiFerdinando serves as the American College of Physicians representative to HEPAC.
HEPAC members come from the public and private sector. In addition to providing health system preparedness recommendations to the NJ Department of Health and Senior Services, HEPAC will also serve as an advisory body for federal preparedness cooperative agreements with the state and as an umbrella organization for committees relevant to health preparedness. These committees will address such preparedness topics as emergency medical services, education and training and special health needs.
UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,700 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
