Preparing for Public Health Emergencies in the US - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the United States, the occurrence of a public health emergency is usual. For instance, a terrorist attack is among the emergencies that have occurred in the United States in recent years, and such emergencies are projected to occur perpetually; therefore, communities and government agencies should always get ready in case of a public health emergency. More significantly, the terrorist attaches that occurred in 2001 in the United States provided a proper signal that the country requires resources and expertise in place before such attack (Carafano 2017). Additionally, the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program has properly collaborated with the states and the terrorist to plan and prepare for the emergency. More importantly, emergency preparedness is of fundamental value to the safety of the community, individuals, and the state. Therefore, planning and implementing such plans enables the public health department to get ready for terrorist occurrence. The paper seeks to examine procedures related to public health services, the importance of evaluating patients during an emergency, how to maintain electronic medical record systems in case of emergency, as well as the need for health insurance in case of emergency.

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Procedures Related to the Public Health Service

Inform Educate and Empower People

When health professionals are aware of the possible occurrence of terrorists and the impact, it can have on health organizations. The public campaign can be carried out to ensure people get informed and empowered about the possibility of terrorists and how people and the community can prepare. For instance, during the identification of sleep position as a risk that could increase infant death all over the world, the United States empowered people through public campaign while encouraging parents to let their kids sleep on their back, the program worked successfully (Carafano 2017).

Developing Policies that Support Community Health Efforts

Most of the health achievements have been obtained through changing policies, including workplace safety requirements and standards for drinking water, which all enhanced people's health and safety. More imperatively, vaccination rates were also increased through school immunization programs that prevented diseases such as chickenpox and measles. Therefore the health policies need to be changed and consider the possibility of terrorist occurrence for a positive response to the emergency.

Enforce Law and Regulations for Health and Safety

Enforcement of laws and regulations that guide the health organization can lead to proper preparation for the possible occurrence of terrorist to ensure safety for the patients in the health organizations. For instance, the implementations of health code can improve health in the effort to prevent food-borne diseases by ensuring that all the restaurants conform to a specific standard. The same enforcement can be executed in terms of ensuring proper security within the health facilities in the United States to ensure terrorists are prevented.

Mobilize Community Partnership and Action to Solve the Problem

Public health is a responsibility of broad stakeholders that include the community; therefore, their corporation and collaboration will ensure that any public health issues, including the risk of a terrorist attack, can be examined, resolved, and prevented. For instance, several initiatives have shifted their focus on the local groups to help in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDs among the population (Carafano 2017). More imperatively, public health programs should focus on the community and engage the people to ensure that the community is proactive enough to prevent the chances of terrorist occurrence that may affect the health and safety of the people.

Effects on Hospitals

More imperatively, the essential public health services are of significance to the health organizations and the safety of the people, including both patients and the employees with the hospitals. The essential service has numerous impacts, such as providing information, education, and empowering to the people on health issues and how to prepare for an emergency within the hospitals. Such essentials assist in mobilizing individuals within the hospitals to get ready for any emergency. They help in developing policies and plans that enhances people's effort on the health issue, as well as proposing laws and regulations which ensure health and safety of the people including the patients in hospitals who may be the victims of the terrorist attack. Finally, they help in monitoring the environmental health of the patients and provide solutions to problems affecting patients and health workers within the health facility.

Importance of Evaluating Patients During Emergency

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act were adopted in 1980 as a consequence of public outrage on the reported cases of not providing health care to patients without insurance in private hospitals; sometimes, patients were transferred to the public hospitals (Savoia, Lin and Viswanath 2013). The mandate of EMTALA is to ensure that patients get proper evaluation during an emergency in all hospitals in the United States before they are transferred to other hospitals for the actual treatment. Since the patient has faced the problem of being turned away when they need care during an emergency, EMTALA ensures that such patients are not turned away. They have medical screening exams to detect if an emergency is needed on the patient during an emergency. The law ensures that people's health is not jeopardized, the body function is not impaired, and the patient's body organs function well during an emergency, as well as ensuring that pregnant women are taken care of during an emergency.

Measure to Maintain Electronic Medical Record During Emergency

Understand Why EHR Failure Occur

Maintaining EHR during an emergency requires a proper understanding of why the failure usually occurs to ensure such failures are avoided during an emergency. An electronic medical record system that is not cloud-based enables the patient's information to be stored in the hard drive, which exposes it to risks such as theft or broken that may cause the information to disappear. Therefore, such risks should be avoided during the emergency.

Backup Data on a Separate System

An emergency requires measures such as having a backup data kept on another system. This may add another layer so that if the actual data in the EHR fails, the data from another system can be used. When proper measures should be executed, including storing patient's information on a different system, any failure even from the cloud-based system can easily be avoided during an emergency.

The Use of Recovery Methods

The recovery method is more significant for maintaining the EHR system during an emergency. The provider of the system should be often unconcealed how the information can be recovered when the system losses patients' information during the emergency. More imperatively, the system usually has a restoration solution, which only depends on the storage system. The system should always remain updated for the possible recovery of information at an emergency. Another important thing is the time taken for recovery; healthcare providers should ask the provider of the system about the amount of time taken for recovery to proactively prepare for an emergency.

Health Insurance as Source of Income to the Facility

More imperatively, health insurance is a source of income for the facility. First, the premium paid by many insured members forms a pool of funds, because the people who pay the premium are many, and they pay it at an interval that can be monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually. In the long-run, the facility accumulates funds, which may help in financing pother services within the facility (Johnstone and Turale 2014). The second benefit is that the facility can use the accumulated funds from the insured members to establish a loan scheme for other members, including the insured, who paid the premium and the employees within the facility, thereby making more income with the interest that accrue from such loans. Finally, the accumulated income can be used to expand the facility through reinvestment and buying the necessary equipment to ensure quality healthcare. The income can as well be used to employ qualified staff to attract more clients to the facility, which is for the betterment of the facility.

How Emergency Affect the Quality of Care and Organizational Operation

Terrorist attacks usually present various challenges to the hospitals, which also affect the quality of healthcare provided to the patients because the hospital has to respond to such an emergency in some capacity (Johnstone and Turale 2014). Terrorist attacks or any form of emergency may prompt the hospital to divert some of its resources on responding to such an emergency instead of concentrating all the resources on patient care, thereby leading to reduced healthcare quality. Some terrorist uses explosives which destroy the whole or part of the facility, including the health equipment which adversely affects the quality of healthcare provided to the patients.

Conclusion

The terrorist attack has been a serious issue in the United States, and it has hurt the health of the population and the health organization. In preparation for the terrorist attack as an emergency, there are procedures and processes, including informing, empowering, and educating the population on how to prepare for such an emergency. It also includes the developing of policies and the enforcement of laws and regulations to ensure the health and safety of the people during an emergency. HER system should be used during the emergency, and the system should avoid any failure during an emergency. It is important to note that the PHEP should implement programs that ensure proper collaboration with both the state and the terrorists to proactively prepare for the possible occurrence of such an emergency.

References

Carafano, J., 2017. Preparing responders to respond: The challenges to emergency preparedness in the 21st century.

Johnstone, M.J. and Turale, S., 2014. Nurses' experiences of ethical preparedness for public health emergencies and healthcare disasters: A systematic review of qualitative evidence. Nursing & health sciences, 16(1), pp.67-77.

Savoia, E., Lin, L. and Viswanath, K., 2013. Communications in public health emergency preparedness: a systematic review of the literature. Biosecurity and bioterrorism: biodefense strategy, practice, and science, 11(3), pp.170-184.