¶ … U.S. Public Health System to better assess and defend against threats from bio-terrorism and infectious disease. This report discusses public health agencies that are "exemplary" in providing public health services in some way or another. That only thirteen were chosen out of seventy-three initially studied indicates how difficult it is to find exemplary public health protection against infectious disease and bio-terrorism threats. Data collection and surveillance are two areas that need improvement, especially in the field, as this report clearly notes. This report contains information about thirteen agencies that offer the best of public health services. It shows what other agencies need to do to come up to a level of exemplary services, and how far some have to go to catch up. For example, the authors cite the "Citywatch" computer monitoring system for the Illinois Department of Health. They write, it is "A sophisticated computer-assisted emergency notification system that alerts multiple organizations and individuals about public health emergencies at one time via telephones, pagers, email, fax, PDAs, TDD-TTY, and other devices" (Tanielian, T. et al., 2005, p. 13). This allows the agency to monitor all of its public health agencies and consistently see how quickly they respond to public health emergencies. This is an excellent system, and it is too bad that it is not available in every community. It helps coordinate communication between locations, it makes the communication quicker and more effective, and it keeps the agencies ready to respond to emergencies. What this indicates is that a majority of public health agencies do not have this kind of coordinated system that can be periodically tested, and that they suffer as a result. They have slower response times because it takes longer to notify all the agencies, and that could be deadly in a bio-terrorism attack or spread of infectious disease. As the authors note, the system "overcomes a serious gap in public health preparedness" (Tanielian, T. et al., 2005, p. 15). If...
The authors note, "RODS allows health departments to monitor the number of patients with symptoms of flu, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, skin rashes, and other conditions. This ability has been thought by some to enable possible early warning of medium- to large-scale disease outbreaks or bioterrorist attacks" (Tanielian, T. et al., 2005, p. 16). Because our country always faces the threat of another terrorist attack, it is important to be able to identify if an attack is occurring through bio-terrorism, and this system can help indicate the beginnings of a bioterrorist attack or serious health crisis in the making. Medical centers without this type of system have to rely on gathering information the traditional way, which takes much longer and leads to much slower results.
One of the most fascinating problems associated with the information age, is not the lack of information but the overabundance of information one can find on any given topic. The internet drives this phenomena of abundance and can offer the individual to many choices and conflicting opinions. There is really no issue, besides health that more effectively resembles the above statement. Many people then seek information from recognized public sources.
This is particularly so for traditionally disadvantaged communities. The involvement of academic institutions would mean a larger among of revenue in order to provide these communities with the best in health care. This will reduce not only the rate of illness, but also of death in these communities, as better equipment is available and students are better prepared for their workforce duties. Preparation alone is however not enough, and
Health Systems Issues and Strategic Planning The delivery of high quality healthcare services requires a sophisticated health system infrastructure that provides a multidisciplinary team approach. This health system infrastructure varies from country to country, but there are some common features that characterize health systems that can be used to identify best practices and current trends in healthcare delivery and administration in general and for an elderly American patient in particular. As
Public Health How is public health financed in your state, province, or country? How does the current budget crisis impact Public Health and Community services in your area? The issue of public health and its subsequent impact on society as a whole is becoming a very contentious issues for government. In the midst of an election year, public health issues such as Medicare, social security, and disease prevention are all becoming more
Public Health Resources 1• Information about country, state, and national public health resources Public health is the bigger science of protecting and improving the health of communities by providing services based on education, healthy lifestyles, and other forms of medical and paramedical services. Public health professionals tend to analyze the health issues of individuals, family and community. However public health also involves the control of epidemics, causalities and calamity reactions. Thus public
Public Health Preparedness The concept of 'public health preparedness' (PHP) has been garnering recognition worldwide, given the global-scale threats which are constantly encountered by professional healthcare organizations, including bioterrorism, Ebola, the West Nile Virus, and influenza. Preparedness approaches have brought about improvements in the overall healthcare system, by enabling swifter responses to diverse kinds of hazards across the globe. A majority of PHP measures adopted in America are government-judged; this gives
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