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Public Health Emergency (public + health_emergency)
Selected AbstractsFinding a Way Through the Hospital Door: The Role of EMTALA in Public Health EmergenciesTHE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 4 2003Sara Rosenbaum First page of article [source] Current Status of Surge ResearchACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2006Sally Phillips RN The dramatic escalation of bioterrorism and public health emergencies in the United States in recent years unfortunately has coincided with an equally dramatic decline in the institutions and services we rely on for emergency preparedness. Hospitals in nearly every metropolitan area in the country have closed; those that remain open have reduced the number of available beds. "Just in time" supplies and health professional shortages have further compromised the nation's overall surge capacity. Emergency departments routinely operate at capacity. These circumstances make evidence-based research on emergency preparedness and surge capacity both more urgently needed and more complex. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other government and private agencies have been rapidly widening the field of knowledge in this area in recent months and years. This report focuses primarily on the work of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. [source] Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response Core Competency Set for Perinatal and Neonatal NursesJOURNAL OF OBSTETRIC, GYNECOLOGIC & NEONATAL NURSING, Issue 4 2010Anne M. Jorgensen ABSTRACT A nationally derived consensus-based core competency set provides perinatal and neonatal nurses a template to guide emergency preparedness and disaster response educational and training activities. Moreover, this consensus-based core competency set allows for the identification and incorporation of measurable objectives that address the learning needs of nurses as well as the unique needs of pregnant women, new mothers, and infants during public health emergencies and disaster events. [source] Keynote Address: Closing the Research-to-practice Gap in Emergency MedicineACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2007Carolyn M. Clancy MD Emergency medicine in the United States is facing tremendous challenges due to recent public health emergencies, continuing threats of bioterrorism, and an increasing and unprecedented demand for emergency department services. These challenges include overcrowding; long waiting times; "boarding" of patients; ambulance diversion; a need for better, more reliable tools for triaging patients; and medical errors and other patient safety concerns. These challenges and concerns were brought to the forefront several years ago by the Institute of Medicine in several landmark reports that call for closing the research-to-practice gap in emergency medicine. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is funding a number of projects that address many of the concerns raised in the reports, including the use of an advanced access appointment scheduling system to improve access to care; the use of an electronic medical record system to reduce waiting times and errors and improve patient and provider satisfaction; and the refinement of the Emergency Severity Index, a five-level triage scale to get patients to the right resources at the right time. The agency's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project is gathering data that will allow researchers to examine a broad range of issues affecting the use, quality, and cost of emergency services. Although progress has been made over the past few years in closing the research-to-practice gap in emergency medicine, many challenges remain. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has supported and will continue to support a broad portfolio of research to address the many challenges confronting emergency medicine, including ways to improve emergency care through the application of research findings. [source] ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL MEDICINES: A HOBBESIAN SOCIAL CONTRACT APPROACHDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2005RICHARD E. ASHCROFT ABSTRACT Medicines that are vital for the saving and preserving of life in conditions of public health emergency or endemic serious disease are known as essential medicines. In many developing world settings such medicines may be unavailable, or unaffordably expensive for the majority of those in need of them. Furthermore, for many serious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis) these essential medicines are protected by patents that permit the patent-holder to operate a monopoly on their manufacture and supply, and to price these medicines well above marginal cost. Recent international legal doctrine has placed great stress on the need to globalise intellectual property rights protections, and on the rights of intellectual property rights holders to have their property rights enforced. Although international intellectual property rights law does permit compulsory licensing of protected inventions in the interests of public health, the use of this right by sovereign states has proved highly controversial. In this paper I give an argument in support of states' sovereign right to expropriate private intellectual property in conditions of public health emergency. This argument turns on a social contract argument for the legitimacy of states. The argument shows, further, that under some circumstances states are not merely permitted compulsory to license inventions, but are actually obliged to do so, on pain of failure of their legitimacy as sovereign states. The argument draws freely on a loose interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's arguments in his Leviathan, and on an analogy between his state of War and the situation of public health disasters. [source] Anthrax: the challenges for decontaminationJOURNAL OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY & BIOTECHNOLOGY, Issue 10 2006Richard J Sharp Abstract Anthrax remains endemic in many parts of the world with regular infections of livestock presenting a consequent risk to public health. In the United Kingdom anthrax has diminished as a significant threat to human health with only sporadic outbreaks in farm animals derived from ingestion of spores from soil at sites associated with previous outbreaks and the burial of carcasses. Occupationally-derived anthrax, associated with industries involved in the processing of animal products, has historically had an impact on the occurrence of outbreaks of infection. The introduction, in 1965, of vaccination for workers in high-risk occupations contributed significantly to the eradication of the disease from the UK. During 2001 the deliberate release of anthrax spores in the USA, disseminated through the postal system, resulted in the infection of 22 people, five of which resulted in death through inhalational anthrax. At that time anthrax was unheard of in many clinical practices and there was a lack of training and preparedness to handle such incidents; the emergency resulted in medical and public health personnel across the world having a significantly raised awareness of both the organism and the clinical symptoms of infection, and the new threat posed by bioterrorism. In the USA, the immediate public health emergency was followed by the legacy of contaminated buildings and facilities. There had been little previous systematic study of the issues surrounding sampling and decontamination of areas contaminated with Bacillus anthracis. The decontamination of large complex buildings and the equipment they contained required the urgent development and validation of new procedures for both sampling and decontamination. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry [source] Geographical difference in antimicrobial resistance pattern of Helicobacter pylori clinical isolates from Indian patients: Multicentric studyJOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY AND HEPATOLOGY, Issue 12 2003SP THYAGARAJAN Abstract Aim:, To assess the pattern of antimicrobial resistance of Helicobacter pylori isolates from peptic ulcer disease patients of Chandigarh, Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Chennai in India, and to recommend an updated anti- H. pylori treatment regimen to be used in these areas. Methods:, Two hundred and fifty-nine H. pylori isolates from patients with peptic ulcer disease reporting for clinical management to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh; All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow; Deccan College of Medical Sciences and Allied Hospitals, Hyderabad; and hospitals in Chennai in collaboration with the Dr ALM Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences were analyzed for their levels of antibiotic susceptibility to metronidazole, clarithromycin, amoxycillin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline. The Epsilometer test (E-test), a quantitative disc diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing method, was adopted in all the centers. The pattern of single and multiple resistance at the respective centers and at the national level were analyzed. Results:, Overall H. pylori resistance rate was 77.9% to metronidazole, 44.7% to clarithromycin and 32.8% to amoxycillin. Multiple resistance was seen in 112/259 isolates (43.2%) and these were two/three and four drug resistance pattern to metronidazole, clarithromycin, amoxycillin observed (13.2, 32 and 2.56%, respectively). Metronidazole resistance was high in Lucknow, Chennai and Hyderabad (68, 88.2 and 100%, respectively) and moderate in Delhi (37.5%) and Chandigarh (38.2%). Ciprofloxacin and tetracycline resistance was the least, ranging from 1.0 to 4%. Conclusion:, In the Indian population, the prevalence of resistance of H. pylori is very high to metronidazole, moderate to clarithromycin and amoxycillin and low to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline. The rate of resistance was higher in southern India than in northern India. The E-test emerges as a reliable quantitative antibiotic susceptibility test. A change in antibiotic policy to provide scope for rotation of antibiotics in the treatment of H. pylori in India is a public health emergency. [source] Identifying the Gaps Between Biodefense Researchers, Public Health, and Clinical Practice in a Rural CommunityTHE JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 3 2008Jessica M. Van Fleet-Green BS ABSTRACT:,Objective:It is essential for health care professionals to be prepared for a bioterrorist attack or other public health emergency. We sought to determine how well biodefense and emerging infectious disease research information was being disseminated to rural health care providers, first responders, and public health officials. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted at a federally funded research institution and a rural community in Washington state with 10 subjects, including researchers, community physicians and other health care providers, first responders, and public health officials. Results: The interviews suggest there is inadequate information dissemination regarding biodefense and emerging infectious disease research and an overall lack of preparedness for a bioterrorist event among rural clinicians and first responders. Additionally, a significant communication gap exists between public health and clinical practice regarding policies for bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease. There was, however, support and understanding for the research enterprise in bioterrorism. Conclusions: Biodefense preparedness and availability of information about emerging infectious diseases continues to be a problem. Methods for information dissemination and the relationships between public health officials and clinicians in rural communities need to be improved. [source] | ||||||||||