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Enhancing Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response
Post September 11
Interim actions for Medical & Public Health Community
HOSPITALS
- Review all relevant disaster response plans and assure appropriately
designated staff are familiar with their content and strategies.
- Establish internal and external lines of communication. Assure that
medical staff are aware of the need to report suspicious cases of illnesses
to public health authorities, and are familiar with who these authorities
are. Have in place dedicated staff, phones and fax machines to support
rapid reporting.
- Hospital leaders should establish collaborative strategies for communicating
with neighboring hospitals, civic leaders, and public health authorities.
- Quantify pharmaceutical and antibiotic supplies, both at central and
satellite facilities. Routinely update this list.
- Assess routine staffing and emergency call-up plans and assure that
these are supported with communication and transportation strategies.
Update the roster of essential personnel.
- Maintain ongoing primary and redundant communication systems.
- Assure that appropriate health care professionals (e.g., emergency
dept and urgent care dept personnel, infection control and infectious
diseases professionals) are aware of the importance of reporting unusual
disease presentations, disease clusters and atypical patterns of hospital
use and know the mechanisms to do reporting.
Other Resources for Hospitals
Smallpox:
What Every Clinician Should Know (online training)
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PHYSICIANS
- Develop an increased awareness of the ongoing threat of bioterrorism.
- Become familiar with and develop a working knowledge of the most likely
and dangerous pathogens as viewed by the CDC (Note link sites and fact
sheets below)
- Become familiar with relevant lines of communication, and important
and emergency phone numbers (hospital epidemiologist, state epidemiologist,
local health department (may be city or county), and the CDC emergency
number (see below)
- Monitor disease patterns and patient volumes in clinics and offices.
Immediately notify the appropriate authorities if you suspect an unusual
event or need medical guidance.
- Patients can also be referred to the CDC public inquiry phone number
(see CDC numbers below) regarding
information about infectious diseases and bioterrorism preparedness
response efforts. Have referral numbers for mental health and support
services as needed.
- The Center is aware that a number of physicians have received requests
for prescriptions for antibiotics to be used in the event of a bioterrorist
attack. It should be known that Centers for Disease Control maintains
a National Pharmaceutical Stockpile of large quantities of antibiotics
and vaccines that could be distributed in the event of an epidemic brought
on by an act of bioterrorism.
Other Resources for Physicians
Smallpox:
What Every Clinician Should Know (online training)
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OF PAGE]
PUBLIC HEALTH
- Local and state public health agencies should collectively review
bioterrorism response plans. Attention should be given to assuring the
integration of response plans, including mechanisms for sharing resources
and personnel as needed.
- Syndromic surveillance procedures should be put in place to monitor
and detect atypical disease presentations and clusters. Both passive
and active surveillance systems should be examined and refined across
public health agencies and with reporting sources.
- Establish and maintain capacity to accept reports of unusual disease
events twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Assure systems of
continual, bi-directional communication between public health agencies
and hospitals under their purview.
- Appropriately trained disease investigation staff should be available
for immediate mobilization and deployment as needed. Staffing levels
should be reviewed and plans put in place to determine non-urgent public
health functions and clinics should it be necessary to pull additional
clinical and field staff for urgent investigation activities.
- Assess communication systems, including procedures for immediately
contacting public health and political leaders. Systems should be assessed
to assure that appropriate authorities could be contacted at the outset
of an emergency. Mechanisms for maintaining ongoing communication, including
pagers, cell phones and wireless email systems, should be assessed and
tested. All staff that provide on-call and disease investigation response
and decision-making should be adequately resourced for 24/7 communication.
- Hold regular meetings with all appropriate government and non-governments
agencies and organizations to continually review and refine plans.
Other Resources for Physicians
Smallpox:
What Every Clinician Should Know (online training)
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OF PAGE]
INTERNET RESOURCES
LOCAL & STATE
WWW.BIOTERRORISM.SLU.EDU
(Centers for the study of Bioterrorism & Emerging Infections)
www.dhss.state.mos.us
(Missouri dept. of Health and Senior Services)
http://www.homelandsecurity.state.mo.us/
(Missouri Department of Homeland Security)
http://www.sema.state.mo.us/semapage.htm
(Missouri State Emergency Managmeent System)
GOVERNMENT
www.cdc.gov
(Center for Disease and Prevention)
www.bt.cdc.gov
(CDC's bioterrorism pages)
www.smallpox.gov
(United States Department of Health & Human Services)
www.fema.gov (Federal
Emergency Management Agency)
www.fbi.gov (Federal
Bureau of Investigation)
http://www.smallpox.army.mil
(Military Vaccine Program)
PROFESSIONAL
www.cidrap.umm.edu
(Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy)
www.apic.org (Association
for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology)
www.naccho.org/PROJECT63.cfm
(National Association of County and City Health Officials)
www.apha.org (American
Public Health Association)
www.naemsp.org
(National Association of EMS Physicians)
www.emergency.com
(Crisis Conflict and Emergency Service News, Analysis & Reference)
http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org/
(Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies)
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DOWNLOAD THESE DOCUMENTS
POSTER:
Evaluating Patients for Smallpox [PDF]
Business
Model For Shelter In Place [PDF]
Chemical
Events: How Families can get Shelter In Place [PDF]
Coping
with A Traumatic Event [PDF]
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