Discuss common themes across the assigned journal articles relative to public health preparedness from the emergency and disaster healthcare perspective.

Many of you without a clinical background will be shocked or dismayed by some of the findings here. Those of you who already work in the healthcare sector may not. Regardless, the objective here is to generate a discussion where everyone learns new information.

Therefore, keep in mind the overall instructions for completion of discussion boards. Those of you who post later should not be writing exactly the same information as the students who post first. Read what has already been written and strive to paint a different picture, cite new references, add something to the discussion that nobody else has found or take a dissenting point of view

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response to 2 posts,

1st post

Emergency and disaster health care is a critical service for the public, especially at the local level. Both articles highlight the importance of emergency healthcare service provision especially in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. As stated by Champion, Mabee & Meredith (2006) injury is the number one cause of death in the United States of America. This means that efforts by the government to reduce mortality should focus more on enhancing emergency healthcare provision. For example, states need to have a functioning emergency medical service facility that dispatches teams to the disaster scenes, responds to emergency calls, treats victims and promptly transports victims to hospitals for further treatment (Committee on the future of Emergency care, n. d).

The two articles all address the role of government in supporting emergency and disaster healthcare provision. The government’s support for the emergency healthcare service sector in terms of financing, planning, training, and coordination is currently minimal. For example, less than eight states receive federal funding for emergency and disaster healthcare provision (Champion, Mabee & Meredith, 2006). Although adequate funding is allocated to the homeland security department, only a small portion is directed at supporting emergency healthcare, while a larger portion is allocated to the police and the fire departments (Committee on the Future of Emergency care, n. d). Without the support from the government, the emergency and disaster healthcare service sector is not able to adequately train its personnel, purchase medicine and maintain transport services. For example, the few emergency healthcare services centres in the United States have employees who are not trained on responding in scenes of terrorist attacks (Committee on the future of Emergency care, n. d). This then means that the emergency and disaster health care centres are not prepared enough to offer quality services to the citizens.

Lack of information by the public is also highlighted by the two articles. Champion, Mabee & Meredith (2006) found out that there exists a disparity between perceived existence and quality of emergency healthcare services provided by the states and the actual quality of services available. While 50% of the population knows that all the states have a trauma system with quality services, only 8 states actually have a trauma system (Champion, Mabee & Meredith, 2006) and the quality of services they offer is not known (Committee on the Future of Emergency care, n. d). Without proper knowledge of the emergency services in each state and the quality of the services they offer, it is not possible for the public to hold accountable the government or the agencies responsible. Lack of this knowledge also implies that it is not only the government who do not prioritize emergency healthcare sector, but the public also has not appreciated the importance of emergency healthcare services.

The two articles also address the theme of disparity in the spatial distribution of emergency of healthcare facilities. According to Champion, Mabee & Meredith (2006) out of all the states in the United States, only 8 states have emergency and disaster healthcare units. Even within the 8 states where emergency services are available, committee on the future of emergency care (n. d) argues that disparity still exists as these facilities are in close proximity in the urban areas while scattered in the rural areas. This disparity in spatial distribution translates into inequality in access to emergency and disaster health care services among the citizens of the United States. Some sections of the U.S. population have to put up with longer response times compared to others. For the states where emergency health care services are not available, it is not only about the response time but also the lack of information about the emergency healthcare service locations that would enable one to even call for the services in case of a disaster.

Reference

Champion, H.R., Mabee, M.S & Meredith, J. W. (2006). The State of US Trauma systems:

Public perception versus reality-implications for the U.S. Response to terrorism and mass casualty events. Chicago: Elsevier Inc.

Committee on the Future of Emergency care. (n. d). Future of emergency care: Emergency

medical services at the crossroads. Washington D.C: The National Academy Press.

2nd post,

After reading all the articles, despite the evolution of the health system in the United States, but the aspirations of the American society requires further improvements and developments of this system. These articles have shown us the useful role of the specialists of the public health preparedness and illustrated the link between public health professionals and emergency managers. Whereas, public health preparedness studies the awareness of the population, what are the needs that required by the community during the disasters, and analyze them and compare them with the current health system to develop it in line with the needs of the community as much as possible.
According to these articles, there are many common problems at all levels of federal, state, state, and local government. There is a significant shortage of crisis and disaster training for response teams or emergency departments in hospitals. Also, there is a lack of communication between the sides of response between each other, or with other stakeholders. Additionally, the lack of absorptive capacity of hospitals during disasters or because of the dramatic increase in the number of patients during pandemic disease.

From my point of view, all the problems mentioned above are interrelated with each other, and to solve them, we must determine with which problem we must work first. I think training to deal with crises and disasters for all levels of government is the most important thing.

I mean here by training hospitals and medical staff, both in emergency departments and in ambulance services, on plans of action in disasters, such as ways to behave during the overcrowding of patients and means of effective communication and what are the strategies of risk communication and training to be applied periodically. In this way, we have created a high capacity to deal with most of the problem we mentioned earlier, only by determining that the top priority comes to training. Where the focus of the exercise was to resolve most of the issues faced by the health sector during crises and disasters such as risk communication plans, surge plans, etc. This is due to the common good, where training will solve more than one problem at a time. We will be saving time and effort, as well as money, as I think, to resolve the remaining issues.

References :

Champion, H. R., Mabee, M. S., & Meredith, J. W. (2006). The state of US trauma systems: public perceptions versus reality—implications for US response to terrorism and mass casualty events. Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 203(6), 951-961.

Davis, D. P., Garberson, L. A., Andrusiek, D. L., Hostler, D., Daya, M., Pirrallo, R., … & Fowler, R. (2007). A descriptive analysis of Emergency Medical Service Systems participating in the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) network. Prehospital Emergency Care, 11(4), 369-382.

Hirshon, J. M., & Morris, D. M. (2006). Emergency medicine and the health of the public: the critical role of emergency departments in US public health. Emergency Medicine Clinics, 24(4), 815-819.