Skip to main content

Health care providers

The effectiveness of emergency preparedness and response systems depends, in part, on the effectiveness of communication between agencies and individuals involved in emergency response, including health care providers who play a significant role in planning, event detection, response and communication with the public. Although much attention has been paid to the importance of communicating clinical data from health care providers to public health agencies for purposes of early event detection and situational awareness (e.g., BioSense) and to the need for alerting health care providers of public health events (e.g., Health Alert Networks), no studies to date have systematically identified the most effective methods of communication between public health agencies and community health care providers for purposes of public health emergency preparedness and response. The REACH (Rapid Emergency Alert Communication in Health) study is a 4-year randomized controlled trial to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of mobile (SMS) and traditional (email, FAX) communication strategies for sending public health messages to health care providers—physicians, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and veterinarians.

Objective:

To systematically compare mobile (SMS) and traditional (email, FAX) communication strategies to identify which modality is most effective for communication of health alerts and advisories between public health agencies and health care providers in order to improve emergency preparedness and response.

 

Submitted by Magou on

58 medical licensure boards require between 12 and 50 hours of Continuing Medical Education (CME) for re-licensure of physicians. 28 states as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Mariana Islands, require continuing nursing education (CNE) for nursing re-licensure, with requirements varying from 5 hours per year to 45 hours every 3 years. Continuing education requirements may include self-directed educational programs, academic education, or research and professional activities. To the best of our knowledge, although there are online public health preparedness programs and journal articles that provide continuing education credits, there is no currently available online course on syndromic surveillance available for CME or CNE.

 

Objective

The Education and Training Committee of the International Society for Disease Surveillance is developing an introductory online CME curriculum in syndromic surveillance for physicians and other health practitioners. This curriculum would also be available for public health practitioners new to syndromic surveillance. The goal of the curriculum is to provide an introductory knowledge of syndromic surveillance for interested practitioners and stimulate healthcare provider cooperation and involvement with syndromic surveillance.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

Sickness absence is particularly pronounced within health care organizations where job demands and work environment expose workers to an increased risk of illness and injury, potentially leading to an inability to attend work. Health Care Workers (HCWs), especially nurses who are primarily responsible for front-line patient care, are at high risk of acquiring infections from direct patient contact. In addition, there is greater risk of exposure to contaminated human blood and body fluids.

 

Objective

1) To identify and describe Occupational Health visits (overall and specific conditions) among full-time Kingston General Hospital employees, according to frequency, duration, workplace variables and seasonality. 2) To consider the association between absenteeism and HCW exposure risk to infectious diseases based on a proxy variable defining level of patient contact. 3) To examine the potential for integration of this occupational health data stream into an existing Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance system.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on
Subscribe to Health care providers