Katy Donovan is the Deputy State Epidemiologist with the Rhode Island Department of Health and a Career Epidemiology Field Officer with the CDC. In Rhode Island she supports the Emergency Preparedness and Infectious Disease Division. Her most recent projects and investigations have included evaluating surveillance systems including COVID-19 and animal bites, consulting on data modernization, and supporting teams working on healthcare associated infections, antimicrobial stewardship, sepsis, and respiratory diseases. Prior to working with RIDOH she served as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the North Carolina Division of Public Health. She has a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Science in Population and International Health from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

Alexia Larson is a Public Health Epidemiologist with the Rhode Island Department of Health. In Rhode Island she works in the Emergency Preparedness and Infectious Disease Division (EPID), specifically the Center for Acute Infectious Disease Epidemiology (CAIDE). Within CAIDE, she is the team lead for both the enteric and animal bites/rabies surveillance programs. Her most recent projects have included modernizing the data systems used for both rabies and enteric surveillance, creating dashboards displaying Rhode Island’s 5 years of rabies data for public viewing, and improving the metric calculations for the enterics program using data automation. She received her Master of Public Health at the University of Toledo and a Bachelor of Science in Gerontology from Bowling Green State University.

Learning Objectives:

•    Identify steps to be taken to work with RIDOH in response to patients with animal bites
•    Describe the RIDOH animal bites control program
•    Summarize the impact of Rhode Island’s animal bite control program on preventing unnecessary PEP and conserving resources

Continuing Education:
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. The Rhode Island Hospital is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Physicians: Rhode Island Hospital designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)^TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participations in this activity.

This program qualifies for 1.0 hours of CME credit in Risk Management of section 6.0; 6.2.1 RI CME re-licensure requirements.

Intended Audience

Medical professionals

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