The Preparedness of the Healthcare System to Handle Epidemic Infectious Diseases - Essay Example

Dissertation Proposal Outline: Investigating the Preparedness of the Healthcare System to Handle Epidemic Infectious Diseases : Institution: Date: Introduction The international healthcare sector has undergone tremendous transformations to be in its current state. Although advances have been realized over the years, regarding the health sectors, numerous issues remain inadequately addressed. One of the issues that have been neglected is the control and prevention of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases present unique challenges to public health, because when not well managed, they can lead to an instance catastrophe (Few, 2013). For instance, as McDade (1999) says, the Ebola epidemic of 2014 proved to the medical sector that more requires to be done for the public to be fully protected from outbreaks of highly infectious diseases. The Ebola epidemic provides an example of the impact of infectious diseases on public health (Soule, Memish, & Malani, 2012). Other highly infectious diseases, such as the H1N1 Swine Flu and SARS virus also pose a risk to public health because they can spread very quickly. The epidemic indicated that the world is unprepared with regard to handling highly infectious diseases properly. The other issue with regard to the infectious diseases is that the world has become borderless as people can travel from one corner the world to the other within 24 hours; thus, they can aid the spread of communicable diseases. Considering that some of these viruses inhabit the human body for a long period before the manifestation of symptoms, it is possible that individuals can carry and infect others with the viruses as they travel. As a result, new outbreaks are likely to be reported in different parts of the world making any prevention strategies difficult. According to the World Health Organization (2006), such infections can easily lead to pandemics killing millions of people throughout the world within a very short time. The only advantage of infections such as Ebola is that the transmission of the virus from the infected person to the healthy person does not start until the symptoms are manifest. However, some of the viruses are lethal, and the transmission from an infected to a healthy person occurs within minutes. Examples include the SARS and the H1N1 Swine Flu viruses, which are transmitted prior to the manifestation of the symptoms (Kocik, Janiak, & Negut, 2012). It is therefore important to determine the level of preparedness of the health care professionals with to the handling of infectious diseases. Furthermore, the level of preparedness of the health care sectors in handling infectious diseases determines the morbidity and mortality rates of these infections. The Ebola epidemic revealed that the global healthcare sector has a long way to go with to proper handling of infectious diseases. The aim of the research is to determine the procedures that have been put in place in the U.K healthcare sector to handle emergency outbreaks of highly infectious diseases such as Ebola. The research also establishes whether healthcare professionals are aware of the existence and effectiveness of these procedures. The preparedness of the country in dealing with infectious diseases would determine the number of patients that die from such diseases. Research questions Two major research questions will be assessed in the study. 1. What procedures have been put in place in the UK healthcare sector to promote the handling of emergency outbreaks of highly communicable diseases such as Ebola? 2. How aware are the healthcare professionals on these procedures and how effective do they consider them to be? Hypothesis Based on the research questions, two hypotheses will be tested in this study. 1. The UK healthcare sector has not put in place comprehensive and effective procedures to promote the handling of highly infectious diseases like Ebola. 2. The health care professionals in the U.K are not well informed about these procedures and consider them ineffective. Plan of Investigation Sampling and Recruitment The research will be carried out in England. It will be a cross-sectional study targeting the healthcare sector in the region. Online semi-structured questionnaires will be used to collect the information required in the study. Information about the health facilities and the health personnel will be obtained from the Department of Health England. A sampling frame of the register health professionals and their contacts will be obtained from the department, this will be the sampling frame, and it will include nurses and doctors. A sum of 200 healthcare providers will be required to fill the questionnaires. A computerized random sampling program from the sampling frame will select these healthcare providers. Upon selection, the researcher will call the respondents, inform them of the purpose of the research, and request their participation. They will be required to fill an informed consent form assenting to participate in the study. Since the hospitals are located in different geographical areas, the researcher will be unable to travel to the individual respondents and hence the questionnaires will be sent to their email addresses. Because of their busy work schedules, the participants will be given about three weeks to fill and return the questionnaires. The researcher will also remind them regularly about the questionnaires to ensure that they are completed on time. Procedure The Research Design/Methodology The study will use a mixed method, which means that the study will benefit from both quantitative as well as qualitative methods. For the quantitative method, semi-structured questionnaires will be filled by the respondents selected to participate in the study. The questionnaires will assess whether the respondents are aware of the procedures put in place and whether they think they are effective. Information regarding the procedures put in place in the different health facilities will be collected from the Department of Health. In addition, the hospital management from the various facilities identified after random sampling will be interviewed on the policies in place that promote the handling of highly communicable diseases. The quantitative data that will be collected for the study is as follows. 1. If the hospital has any clear policy, how often is it reviewed and updated? As Hunger (2013) says, this is important because even the best policy, when not reviewed every often will not be useful to the hospital. 2. How informed are all the healthcare professionals regarding the procedures put in place in the hospitals to respond to highly infectious diseases? This information will be collected through the questionnaires. Justification for the Mixed Methods Study Both quantitative and qualitative research designs have their unique advantages and disadvantages. Qualitative studies can present information in numerical formats and hence promote comparisons (Wadsworth, Maughan, & Pickles, 2007). Moreover, quantitative data can be analysed through tests, such as Chi-square and t-test among others. Consequently, qualitative data is strong as it gives an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon under study. It also ensures that research subjects provide a critical analysis of their personal perspectives regarding a certain issue. Thus, the use of the mixed method study will promote the comparison of numerical data and offer an in-depth understanding of the level of preparedness in the different hospitals. Qualitative Data The qualitative research will entail Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with employees from the Department of Health in England. The aim of these discussions is to provide information regarding the preparedness of the health care sector and the procedures put in place by the policymakers to ensure that the country deals with highly infectious diseases effectively. A group of ten employees will be selected to participate in the discussion through the assistance of the human resources department. The researcher will request for their participation, and the proceedings of the discussions will be tape-recorded. Moreover, the discussion, will moderate the discussion based on questions prepared prior to the FGD. Methods of Analysis Appropriate Statistical Tests Type of Thematic Analysis Quantitative data will be analysed using SPSS version 20. The data will be entered into an SPSS database, cleaned, coded and analysed using the program. Statistics such as the means, modes and medians will be obtained. The qualitative data will be analysed using En vivo. The data will be first transcribed in hard copies word-for-word and then transferred into the program. The analysis will be based on various themes, such as procedures put in place, government policies, and effectiveness of the procedures among other themes. Anticipated Impact on Potential Beneficiaries of the Research The advantage that may be achieved from this study includes creating awareness to health care and nursing leaders about the issue. The need for preparedness of the medical sector with regard to the issue of highly communicable disease is important not just to protecting the public but also protecting the professionals who are always at risk when handling such cases. The study will reveal the status quo about how prepared the healthcare system in the UK is in handling such cases and if gaps exist. The hypothesis indicates that wide gaps exist. These gaps will be closed to make sure that enough preparedness exists with to the issue of highly communicable diseases. The public will be one of the major beneficiaries with to this issue. As Hunger (2013) says, in cases where inadequate preparedness for such outbreaks presents, the public suffers the most because they are affected the most by these diseases. This was evidenced in Africa where the lack of preparedness with to handling such highly communicable diseases led to thousands of people dying from an Ebola epidemic (Koenig & Schultz, 2009). Ethical Concerns Some of the ethical concerns that may come up while carrying out such a study include, Medical policies of the hospitals Some of the operational policies of a hospital remain classified and only the staff members should know these policies. The methodology part of this proposal will involve looking into policies of the hospital to identify how prepared they are in terms of policy and strategy in dealing with such epidemics. Considering that some of these contagious diseases, for instance, Anthrax can be used by terrorist as biological weapon, it is necessary that most hospital and the government keep policies and strategies regard their emergency response policies a secret. Revealing such a strategy and policy to the public may be unethical and even illegal in some instances and this has to be considered. The research study will also include looking into the nurses and doctors with to how they are prepared and aware of the importance of being prepared for any epidemic of an infectious disease like Ebola. This can also lead to some ethical issues that have to be addressed right in the beginning to make sure that they are avoided. The study may require the professionals who will be interviewed and studied to share their professional competency information. As a result, the information must be handled with extreme care because if such information landed in the wrong hands, it could lead to negative results and this is unacceptable in any case. For instance, if it turns out that some of the professionals may not have the right amount of awareness, this can lead to them being victimized or looked down upon by their managers and co-workers. Such incidences arising from a study have to be avoided at all costs. At the same time, it will be necessary for the participants, especially the individual nurses, physicians, and clinicians to be informed that sharing any of their profession’s information is voluntary. They should also be made clearly aware that participation in the study is voluntary. This will be necessary to make sure that no duress occurs with regard the participation of the individual workers as well as the institution that will be involved in the study. This will be necessary for making sure that the ethical issues are addressed and that all participants will participate in the study willingly. Personal information will also not be reported and this will help in protecting the identity of the participants. Only work related information will be recorded. The participants will be informed about this and they will be guaranteed that their personal information, such as names, employment details among other information will not be used in the study and will not be reported. This will improve the probability that they will offer credible information. Possible Difficulties Various possible difficulties will be encountered with to doing this study. The first of the difficulties will be concerning the sampling technique. A misalignment between the scope of the study and the scope of the problems it is seeking to investigate exists. The study intends to identify how the healthcare system in the U.K is prepared with to the issue of an epidemic of an infectious disease. However, due to the scope of the study, it will not be possible to collect data from the hospitals across the UK. In this case, however, a section of hospitals, which are within reach, will be the ones that will be investigated instead of studying all the hospitals. The research will focus on hospitals in England, to ensure representativeness of the entire United Kingdom. The sampling frame of the registered medical professionals in the region will ensure that the majority of the hospitals in England are included. The number of hospitals will be determined after finalizing the sampling procedures. Although the research will only focus on one city in the United Kingdom, the results will give a reasonable picture of the situation in the region. The study will also form a basis for more comprehensive research in hospitals all over the UK. The other problem will be with to collecting data, especially the quantitative data. Collecting qualitative data can be a risky issue because most of this data are not structured and are very subject to interpretation, which means that the wrong analysis can result. At the same time, those being interviewed are likely to give erroneous information, especially where they feel that giving the right information may interfere with their personal interests (Bernard, 2010). For instance, as identified in the methods section, the medical staff will be interviewed to find out how aware and prepared they are with to dealing with an emergency outbreak of a highly infectious disease. Some people are likely to give false information if they feel that giving the correct information will make them look back or make them look less professional or less competent. False information in a study like this can be very dangerous as it means that the wrong findings will be reached and; therefore, the wrong conclusions will be drawn (Lavery, 2007). Based on the seriousness of the problem under investigation, this can be very risky, especially if the findings of this study are used to drive the future research on the same matter. Methods of Dissemination As with any other research study, the methods of dissemination are as important as the research itself because without them, the study will not have any impact. The method of dissemination for this study will include, Websites Numerous online platforms exist where researchers can easily disseminate their information. The data will be mainly disseminated on the Department of Health England’s website to ensure that health professionals learn about the topic under study. In addition, the information will also appear on the statistics portal on the Public Health England website. The information on the websites will mainly target health professionals and policy makers. Journals The study will also seek to be published in BMC Public Health Journal. Since this is an international journal, it will ensure that the information reaches different people throughout the world. The information will also be useful to other researchers interested in undertaking scientific research studies on the same. Project Timetable Task Start date Completion date Deliverables Preliminary study 2nd March 2015 2nd April, 2015 Primary data for further study Interviews 3rd April, 2015 15st April 2015 Qualitative data Questionnaires 15th April,2015 15th June, 2015 Quantitative data Coding and cleaning of data 16th June, 2015 16th July, 2015 Results of the study Discussions and analysis 17th July, 2015 17th August, 2015 Final paper References Bernard, L. (2010). Ethical issues in clinical research: A practical guide. London, UK: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Biden, J. (2001). Threat of bioterrorism and the spread of infectious diseases: hearing before the committee on foreign relations, U.S. Senate. Washington, DC: DIANE Publishing. Dry, S., & Leach, M. (2010). Epidemics: science, governance, and social justice. London, UK: Routledge. Earnest, W. (2012). Ethics in medical research; handbook for Researchers. London, UK: Cengage Books. Few, R. (2013). 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Field manual for capacity assessment of health facilities in responding to emergencies. Washington, D.C.: World Health Organization. World Health Organization. (2000). Guidelines for Preventing HIV, HBV and other infections in the health care setting. London, UK: Universities Press. Read More