Charles River public health nurses form monthly shared‑services group; Medfield adds part‑time nurse

Carrie Dunnell, program manager for shared services at the Charles River Public Health District, told the advisory group that the district’s public‑health nursing team is “almost fully staffed” after a kickoff meeting for the new public‑health nurse group and that the group agreed to meet monthly.

The new Medfield hire, Emily Dilaglio, was introduced as “the new part time public health nurse in Medfield,” and Jen Gagarin, regional public health nurse, said she and others had moved Emily to the primary contact in the district’s Maven account so Emily can transition onto casework. “We changed her to the primary contact yesterday,” Gagarin said.

The nut graf: the new monthly nursing group is intended to let town nurses share responsibilities and staffing for seasonal clinics and training, and to create a common set of operating procedures for vaccine handling, reporting and clinic staffing across the participating towns.

Details cited at the meeting included a hands‑only CPR clinic on July 15 that drew “20 people” and a plan to share vaccine program standard operating procedures from Needham with the other towns. Gagarin said the district plans to use the training model already used for shared‑services nurses: shadowing on initial cases, joint work on first patients, then handover to the new nurse. “Our plan is sort of to mimic what Tiffany did for me, which is to sort of work together on first cases, and then Emily will, you know, take it over,” Gagarin said.

Nursing staffing specifics discussed at the meeting: the district now has a nurse in each town; Hannah Burnett, a 25‑hour nurse, will reduce to about 10 hours per week to work on special projects; and Laura Duff is scheduled to join part‑time in September. Gagarin and others clarified that Jen Casey serves as a shared‑services staff member and is not counted as a town’s captive nurse: “Needham does not consider her to be a Needham nurse. She is not a captive Needham resource,” the program manager said.

Participants also discussed enrollment in state reporting tools. Gagarin and other nurses said some towns have active accounts in the state reporting platform (“Color”) while others are still registering; Emily Dilaglio said she was scheduled for Color training to get her account active. The group expects to coordinate staffing support for the upcoming flu season and to explore using pharmacies and cross‑town staffing to run clinics.

Board members and guest speakers framed the shared‑services nursing group as a resource to help smaller towns access training, grant opportunities and hospital community‑benefit programs. Carol (identified as a Medfield Board of Health member) urged continued regional coordination to connect towns with foundation and hospital funding for programs and to use the shared platform to amplify opportunities.

The advisory group set its next public‑health nurse meeting for August 19 to track town‑level and shared services offerings, and members said they will compile a common set of procedures and a shared work plan to document vaccine requirements, refrigeration and staffing expectations.

Ending: participants closed the staff‑report segment and moved to the next agenda item; the meeting later adjourned for lack of forum when expected participants could not join.