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About Us
Company Philosophy from Dr. Mark Dembert
The cornerstones to the success and accomplishments of Strategic Public
Health Solutions are psychology, creativity, and innovation.
I use the principles of individual, group, organizational, and environmental psychology and
communication to fully understand and work with the breadth and depth
of human needs and responses. My professional working knowledge
and skills as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist allow me to empathize
with people individually and collectively, to understand and put words
to their needs and desires (an “in their shoes” approach),
and to anticipate what might be done (strategies and solution) by health
care, public health, and business entities to truly enhance every person’s
daily life. This applies to routine and emergency (disaster) situations.
Creativity gives an individual or a group a daily identity
and purpose in life. The smallest details of one’s life or
the largest endeavors of a corporation or a community embrace creativity
and in the end, improve health and wellbeing for everyone. In work,
my lifelong pursuits of multi-media art, invention, and the design of
everyday things allow me to identify, guide, and collaborate with the
creativity of my clients. I want to see my clients’ creativity
ultimately “infect,” stimulate, and sustain the public creativity
for the same health care and public health challenges.
Innovation is formed from the raw material of creativity,
mixed with people and their ideas. In a business sense, innovation
in public health and health care is about creating viable
and welcome products, programs, and plans; these can be preexisting or
built new, retooled and revitalized, or shaped in terms of size and scope. I
know that innovation as a process requires small to seismic shifts
in some clients’ attitudes and beliefs. I view this process
as one of unwavering faith that the journey over the road(s)
taken is almost always far more rewarding now and for the future, than
arriving at the actual destination of a product, program, or plan.
Some of the innovative products and programs that I developed
include:
“Gotta Cough? Gotta Sneeze? Use These Please!” colorful
drawn signs attached to facial tissue boxes that were distributed
in public places to reduce winter influenza spread.
“Don’t click to make me sick” drawn cards posted at each
health department computer to prevent downloading of unauthorized
material with possible viruses.
Respiratory disease transmission prevention signage for health care facilities
that is hand drawn with figures and text representing different
cultures.
“Rock and Read” program to bond groups of new fathers with their
infants by having/helping them read baby books to their
babies while rocking them, all the while being mentored on the spot in basic
baby care skills by “experienced” fathers.
“The First 30 Feet” program: ensuring the last 15 feet before patients
enter the public health building and the first 15 feet
once inside are visually and aesthetically pleasing, welcoming,
clean, well lighted, well organized, and informative in basic literacy and
(foreign) languages to those who use the agency.
“Vacci-Knight and the Immunizer” Coloring Book for kids, to enhance
awareness of their immunization requirements among their
parents, in Norfolk, VA.
I formed Strategic Public Health Solutions LLC in 2005 in response
to the succession of natural disasters in 2004 and 2005 that so that ravaged
the world and in particular, the United States. These events made
it painfully evident to me that people’s everyday life experiences
engaging health care systems and organizations, as well as government
agencies and community organizations, for further physical and psychosocial
health issues are too commonly adversarial, unnecessarily irksome, and
in some cases, undeservedly catastrophic. Further observation and
research and interviews on my part showed that this applies to routine
health care as well as to emergency physical, behavioral, and social health
care for all stages of the disaster life cycle (preparedness, response,
recovery, and mitigation/stabilization).
I believe that Strategic Public Health Solutions can be
an important part of this effort at global understanding and improvement.
My professional working knowledge and skills in the behavioral
health field allow me to create strategies and solutions that enhance
existing strengths of health care systems, communities, organizations,
businesses, and governments, as well as to identify and constructively
build upon recognized weaknesses at the same time.
Public health and public behavioral health are continually
under the world microscope to prepare us against the growing
threats of bioterrorism, other weapons of mass destruction,
natural disasters, insidious environmental hazards, and
newly emerging or resurging communicable diseases, most
recently pandemic influenza. How
well large numbers of physically and behaviorally sick,
exposed, or worried numbers of people can be taken care
of in these disasters—surge
capacity—and
how well large numbers can be safely sheltered or evacuated,
are present challenges for not only health care systems and governments,
but also business enterprises and communities, to address
and solve.
The emphasis has begun turning from governments, to states,
and now to communities as the primary planning and response “agencies.” They
are being tasked to be more responsive to the daily goals and challenges
of health care, public health, environmental health, and public behavioral
health efforts. I saw this evolving at local and state levels as
a public health physician, health director, and psychiatrist. I
experienced first hand that real health care and public health solutions
are found when people network, meet, and collaborate at the same table,
aided by the combination of psychology, communication, innovation, and
creativity. This is what Strategic Public Health Solutions makes
happen.
Mark
L. Dembert, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM
Prior to forming Strategic Public Health Solutions LLC
in 2005, I was employed by the Virginia Department of Health
in three capacities from 2003-2005. I served as the
acting and then full time Health Director for the Western
Tidewater Health District, based in Suffolk, VA, from 2003-2005. This
district is comprised of two cities and two large counties
and includes Suffolk, the largest city geographically in
Virginia.
In addition to overseeing all clinical, nursing, environmental
health, and administrative services, I was a key member
of an important environmental negotiation process regarding
the land application of biosolids within the district. I
combined art and illustration, psychology, and writing
to create several innovative solutions for significant
local public health challenges. I also led numerous
emergency preparedness and response (EP&R) disaster
and terrorism initiatives which included the following:
completion of numerous health department and jurisdictional
plans; chairmanship of a unique city multi-agency task
force with numerous accomplishments, e.g., “super
shelter” capacity for special needs populations;
director of 3 year Medical Reserve Corps grant; and consultant
to the local community behavioral health services board
for developing an effective EP&R plan.
I was also
appointed to the leadership of Virginia’s Terrorism and Disaster Behavioral
Health Advisory Council (TADBHAC). It was a joint effort of the Department
of Health and the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance
Abuse Services to establish a statewide behavioral health emergency preparedness
and response advisory group, bringing together a coalition of public, private,
medical society, and academic behavioral health care providers from across
the state.
I also served as the Eastern Region Medical Consultant
(Emergency Preparedness and Response) for the Virginia
Department of Health. Primary areas of responsibility
included epidemiology, surveillance, and public health
emergency planning and response for chemical, biological,
radiation, nuclear, and high explosive (CBRNE) terrorism
as well as natural, technological, and transportation disasters. In
this capacity, I led a team of five other EP&R public
health specialists that collaborated with local public
health, federal and municipal government, military, private
health care, emergency services, Hampton Roads Metropolitan
Medical Response System, and other requesting organizations.
On November 1, 2002, I retired as a Captain in the U.S.
Navy Medical Corps after a distinguished 27 year active
duty career. After commissioning in 1975, I initially
trained and practiced in diving, hyperbaric, and submarine
medicine. My subsequent leadership positions, clinical
practice, organizational consultation work, and research
efforts in preventive and occupational medicine, travel
medicine, environmental medicine, and psychiatry took me
from Asia, Central America, to Antarctica (Operation Deep
Freeze), various survival schools, submarines and surface
ships.
While stationed at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth
(Virginia), I was head of its Special Psychiatric Rapid
Intervention (SPRINT) Team, a worldwide deployable rapid
response Critical Incident Stress Debriefing team. This
and related work was the basis for numerous publications,
lectures, education and training seminars, and services
provided within the community disaster behavioral health
field. I also became a U.S. Navy Medicine subject
matter expert on the behavioral health aspects of chemical,
biological, radiation, nuclear, and high explosive terrorism. My
military awards included the Legion of Merit and the Meritorious
Service Medal.
My professional education and training included the following:
graduation from Bucknell University in 1971 with a B.S.-Biology
(Honors) Degree; graduation from Jefferson Medical
College in 1975 with an M.D. degree; completion of a preventive
medicine residency and an M.P.H. degree from Yale University
School of Medicine in 1983; and completion of a psychiatry
residency at Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA in 1991. I
am board-certified in both General Preventive Medicine-Public
Health and in General Psychiatry. I am a Fellow
of the American College of Preventive Medicine (FACPM)
and belong to the American Public Health Association, American
College of Preventive Medicine, American Psychiatric Association,
American Group Psychotherapy Association, and the Academy
of Organizational and Occupational Psychiatry. I have been
an assistant professor (community) in the Department of
Psychiatry, Uniformed University of the Health Sciences,
Bethesda, MD, since 1992.
Aside from consulting, I also volunteer my time and efforts
as a member of two important Pennsylvania government initiatives:
Mental Health Support for Returning Pennsylvania Military–Task
Force Workgroup; and the Emergency Mental Health Planning
Consortium.
[A full
resumé, a list of publications and presentations, and samples of public
health creative work are available by request.]
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