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Healthcare organizations can be prepared to address problems which are caused by biological pathogens. In 2001, the US created a department of health preparedness to deal with health disasters after anthrax attack that came unexpectedly costing the comfort of many people. The main reason why this department was made was to prevent and manage many healthcare associated infections which occur abruptly causing deaths of many people whereas they could be prevented.
Department of health preparedness is supported by the federal government through Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The financial support has allowed the ministry of health to be able to carry out research on various threatening diseases. They have employed communication across the states and intensive laboratory work. Public health have also partnered with many organizations to help in prevention of outbreaks of such attacks (Katz et al., 2006).
One of the challenges in preparedness is that as the healthcare is putting its efforts in preparedness, bioterrorists are also changing their strategies of launching attacks. This is mainly caused by resistance of disease causing microorganism to drugs. Resistance is caused by excessive use of drugs by the patients. Healthcare must thus focus on monitoring drug use by patients so as to prevent resistance. Resistance causes the disease to re-occur (Wolper, 2011).
Public health has also employed prevention mechanisms of diseases by finding vaccination, prevention and control of infectious and chronic diseases (Katz et al., 2006).
Healthcare organizations can prepare for bioterrorism by addressing four main issues. These are, “public health issues, healthcare delivery issues, support issues and security and hazard issues” (Wolper, 2011, p. 472). These steps are effective as they help in preparedness from the local community authorities. Bioterrorism preparedness therefore involves working together of public health authorities, healthcare providers and clinicians, private health sector, security and policies.
Public health issues involve surveillance of diseases, diagnosis and determining the risk of a disease. Medical practitioners should then look for ways to protect other people from infections. They should be on the lookout to prevent re-occurrence of an infection (Wolper, 2011).
Healthcare delivery systems should provide effective methods of laboratory diagnosis of disease causing organisms. Early detections help to ease the burden of the disease because only a few people are infected making it manageable to the healthcare institutions (Wolper, 2011).
Security and hazard issues include facilitation of bioterrorism preparedness, it is important to carry out planned preparedness exercises. These exercises should be well distributed from the local community such as “vaccine distribution, command and control structures and communication systems” (Katz et al., 2006, p. 950). It is also necessary to carry out a test on the public health emergencies for this would help the department to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses which are in the system. In 2004 public health had urged people to get vaccinated but the flu vaccine was not enough for all the vulnerable people which showed that the manufacturing company was not fully prepared (Katz et al., 2006).
Healthcare providers are not sometimes prepared for the task because they are not well positioned to handle large number of people in case of emergencies. Some of the healthcare providers have no sufficient funds to cater for emergency needs such as decontamination equipment and units to separate patients. Some hospitals have not trained their workers and this is a great challenge because they cannot provide services efficiently. This means that financial and staff support are crucial in bioterrorism preparedness (Katz et al., 2006)..
In conclusion, the two authors have given guidelines on bioterrorism preparedness, putting an emphasis in the roles played by different personnel’s so as to obtain good results. Testing preparedness is important as it will help to eliminate the possible sources of weakness in the system in response to a bioterrorism attack. However, more needs to be done to support healthcare providers in every region.
References
Katz et al. (2006). Preparing for the Unknown, Responding to the unknown.:communities and public health preparedness. Heath Affairs. 25.4. From EBSCO host. print , 946-957.
Wolper, L. F. (2011). Healthcare Administration: managing Organized Delivery systems. Fifth edition. Massachusetts, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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