Emergency Public Health: Preparedness and Response - Essay Example

"Emergency Public Health: Preparedness and Response" is a wonderful example of a paper on the health system. Since the unfortunate events of bioterrorism on September 11, 2010, and subsequent anthrax attacks, the US Congress approved increased funding to state health departments to combat bioterrorism and other emergency health concerns such as tornadoes and storms and floods which could lead to epidemiological breakouts e.g. Salmonellosis. The occurrence of these natural disasters usually leads to mass casualties and the response time for these emergencies should be cut as short as possible. The funding has been used to upgrade and expand the capability to respond to all public health hazards and threats which leads to mass casualties and at the same time reducing the response time to these unfortunate public health events. The interventions involved are integrating the state and local emergency response professionals in the entire nation and the support of prepared personnel that represents all the facets of public health.

The intervention plan

1. There are several policies that should be implemented in order to achieve a timely response to public health threats. The measures to be taken include;
2. Increasing the number of personnel and public volunteers trained in the National Incident Management System to at least five thousand per state. This will increase the timeliness and chances of detecting and responding to public health threats.

• To increase the number of emergency preparedness and strategic national stockpile training session, this will be done by organizing state-wide seminars and symposiums on public health threats.

1. To build and install emergency response units in each and every health establishment, these departments are to be headed by professionals who are well trained and educated on emergency health response management. Each department will employ at least ten staff who will be charged with the responsibility of detecting and responding to public health threats.
2. To provide the response groups with adequate equipment to detect and combat public health threats. This equipment includes laboratories that can be used to diagnose and detect the causative agents of the threats.

Objectives

1. Decrease the time needed to classify health events as terrorism, calamities such as fires.
2. Improve the timeliness and accuracy of the information that involves a threat to public health.

• Decrease the time needed to correctly recognize the causes, risk factors, and the appropriate interventions of those who are affected by public health threats.

1. To implement and increase the use and development of basic interventions in order to prevent all the possibilities of mass casualty threats
2. To provide hotlines and toll-free phone numbers to the public to respond to public health threats
3. To equip public health officials and professionals with the knowledge on how to respond to public health threats and hazards

• To decrease the timeline for restoring the health services and environmental safety to pre-event levels

These evaluation approaches would be subjected to intense evaluation to assess its effectiveness. The evaluation involves submitting evaluation questionnaires to the response personnel on a regular basis to establish their intelligence and preparedness. The departments of emergency response can also be evaluated and graded according to the manner in which they have responded to past public health events.

The tools needed for the evaluations are;

1. Questionnaires to the professionals and the public on their knowledge of emergency response
2. Conducting one on one interviews

• Conducting focus group discussions

1. Conducting quizzes and exams

The evaluation study is concluded using statistical analysis through the special statistical data analysis

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