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Q:Varney and Hirshon list seven general rationales for providing ED-based public health surveillance. Surveillance is a critical form of communication for public health officials. Choose a real public health outbreak, disaster, or crisis. Provide one example of how any of the concepts described in this paper were actually used to improve public health. Describe the intervention for your classmates. Cite your reference.
1) Public health, just like security requires that information is collected early and promptly to direct the decision-making process involved in designing actions to ensure that outbreaks are controlled. Early detection and controlling of public health events also helps alleviate the potential fear that may result from large-scale infections. Such a collection of data to influence future action is called surveillance. Public surveillance is therefore defined as activities performed via the collection of data in an ongoing way to influence decisions concerning the health of the people (Varney & Hirshon, 2006). The 2002 Olympic Winter Games that happened in Utah is an example of an event in which healthcare professionals employed surveillance to ensure that the people remained healthy by catching potential outbreaks before they happen via the rapid response.
The Winter Olympic games of Utah happened soon after the 9/11 terrorist attack that targeted several buildings and led to the loss of many lives and the Anthrax attack that had happened soon after the 9/11 attacks in the October of 2001. Therefore, there was a need to be very vigilant just in case the terrorists took advantage of the many people that attended the Utah games to launch a massive biological or chemical attack. The public health apparatus therefore put in place measures to perform syndromic surveillance (Gesteland et al., 2003). In syndromic surveillance, the public health officers depended on factors such as symptoms and drugs bought over the counter among other factors apart from definitive diagnosis to collect informative information.
Technological advancement was employed in the case of the Utah Winter Olympics. Several elements of the healthcare system were used in the collection of information. One of them was the electronic health records. Other sources of instant information that was analyzed for rapid decision-making include controlled terminologies and messaging standards (Gesteland et al., 2003). The method collected data that is usually collected in a drop-in form albeit using a less intrusive and less costly method. The data was captured from the health information systems of all major hospitals in Utah.
The Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) method is among the most important automation that was used in the event. The RODS involved an electronic bio-surveillance system that utilized the Health Level 7 routers that had been installed in the hospitals to get the data in real time from the information systems (Gesteland et al., 2003). The system then analyzed the information for anomalous densities like in the case of drop-in and compared the information generated to the historical pattern to establish whether there is a new trend that needs to be acted upon.
Gesteland, P. H., Gardner, R. M., Tsui, F. C., Espino, J. U., Rolfs, R. T., James, B. C., … & Wagner, M. M. (2003). Automated syndromic surveillance for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 10(6), 547-554.
Varney, S. M., & Hirshon, J. M. (2006). Update on public health surveillance in emergency departments. Emergency Medicine Clinics, 24(4), 1035-1052.
2) Unites States has hinted by numerous disasters regularly for this month hurricane Florence has to strike the country. Hurricane Florence just any other disasters which have caused severe pain and distress to Americans. The disaster occurred between 12th and 15th of September this year. The disaster is composed of the extreme water vapor and the strong winds which moving at high speed. The water vapor and the strong winds originate from the Atlantic Ocean towards the inland side of North and South Carolina of United States of America (Niko Kommenda 2018.) The emergency department preparedness has played a critical role in the incident of the hurricane Florence. The surveillance of public health has helped to deal with the situation and the impacts of the incident. Therefore, this called for the public health officials to respond to the disaster to avoid the massive destructions which come as a result of the hurricane Florence.
These extreme weather conditions have caused destructions to the homes, house, and property worth billions of dollars to the residents of north and South Carolina. In addition to that, it caused the death of 50 people since the floods went higher to about 35 inches in some areas. Also, the hurricane Florence has caused depression to many people in the regions since most of them have rendered homes as well as the coldness which has caused suffering. The department provided the early warning to the people living in those affected areas to vacate their homes and business on time to avoid the death and injuries. Some of the early warnings which had been issued by the emergency department is concealing all the airlines traveling to the affected areas to avoid the crush which may be caused by water vapor due to lack of visibility. In addition to that, all the people have been cautioned not to drive in the flooding areas because the water level may be higher than what they may estimate with the naked eyes. The public was advised not to go back to their homes until further information given that the water level has gone down. To add on that the emergency department has provided the helpline for all the people who may be affected by the flood brought by the hurricanes Florence. For the victim who has been caught up by the water, they will have to call the number so that they can be evacuated from the danger zone to save more zones which are not affected by the deadly hurricanes Florence (prevention 2018.). Also, the emergency department advised the people to ensure dangerous facilities containing carbon monoxide stored in the save areas.
The contaminated water should also be avoided because it may cause water borne- diseases. The preparedness for the hurricane Florence has been used to improve the public health since the weather department works with collaboration with the center for the emergency department. The weather department forecast the weather and in case of other disasters on the way the emergency department is aware enhance providing information to the public so that prevention measures are taken to prevent deaths and fatalities associated with hurricanes. Emergency department equips themselves with enough foods and other necessary things such as blankets to help the people who are affected by other disasters in the United States. Hence, the paper related with the article in a number of the ways which include: a collection of the data, the first step for the public health to provide effective surveillance and prevention measures it’s to ensure they have the data about the disaster. The data collected is analyzed and then applied in proper manners to prevent the disaster or minimize the adverse impacts of the disaster this because the public health will put in place effective intervention measures (Burkom, 2005:).
Additionally, similarly to the paper in the article, the emergency department needs the proper equipment and the person to deal with the disasters which are facing our nation. The planning on time will play a critical role in executing the plan on the day of the incident. Technology is also an important tool in ensuring that public health has adequate information about the disaster which likely to happen
References
Burkom HS, Murphy S, Coberly J. ” Public health monitoring tools for multiple data streams. In: Syndromic surveillance:” .” reports from a national conference, 2005:: 55–62.
Kommenda, N., Levitt. D and Gutiérrez. P (2018 “Florence tracker: latest maps show hurricane path and rainfall.” 2018.
Prevention, center disease control and. “. “Hurricane Florence.”.” 2018.