Sept. 16, 2003

VCU awarded $1.5 million to provide bioterrorism training

Only Virginia institution to receive federal grant for training of health professionals

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By Michael Ford
University News Services

RICHMOND, Va. – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Department has awarded a $1.5 million grant to Virginia Commonwealth University to provide continuing education for health professionals to better respond to bioterrorism emergencies.

VCU is the only Virginia institution to receive one of 19 grants awarded under the HHS Bioterrorism Training and Curriculum Development Program, established to strengthen bioterrorism training and education for the nation's health professions workforce. 

"This was an extremely competitive process and points to the national expertise of our faculty at VCU and the VCU Medical Center," said Dr. Eugene P. Trani, VCU president.  "The thousands of healthcare professionals we train over the next few years will benefit from leaders in the field who teach in our life sciences, engineering and health sciences programs."

VCU will train about 3,000 people, most of them from Virginia, during the initial two-year roll out of the program.  Dr. Joseph Ornato, professor and chair of emergency medicine at the VCU Medical Center will lead the grant team.  He said training will include healthcare workers and some non-healthcare workers, such as government officials, who have responsibilities in a community disaster caused by a terrorist event. 

"We will provide high-tech bioterrorism training of physicians, nurses, paramedics, police, firefighters and select non-healthcare providers," Ornato said.  Courses will include advanced, basic and core disaster life support, some of them using high-tech patient robotic simulator systems.

The Bioterrorism Training and Curriculum Development Program was created with the passage of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.  The program will provide for training of at least 38,000 health professionals across the country.  HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) administers the program.  More information is available at http://www.hrsa.gov/bioterrorism.htm.