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Results for “Preparedness”

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PubMed2001

Pharmacy preparedness for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.

Recent worldwide terrorist acts and hoaxes have heightened awareness that incidents involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may occur in the United States. With federal funding assistance, local domestic preparedness programs have been initiated to train and equip emergency services and emergency department personnel in the management of large numbers of casualties exposed to nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) agents. Hospital pharmacies will be required to provide antidotes, antibiotics, antitoxins, and other pharmaceuticals in large amounts and have the capability for prompt procurement. Pharmacists should become knowledgeable in drug therapy of NBC threats with respect to nerve agents, cyanide, pulmonary irritants, radionucleotides, anthrax, botulism, and other possible WMD.

Animals↗

PubMed1993

Relationships of interns' performances to their self-assessments of their preparedness for internship and to their academic performances in medical school.

This study addressed the questions of whether medical students' cumulative grade-point averages (GPAs) correlate with the performance assessments (overall and in specific areas of competency) that they receive as interns from their internship program directors, and whether the students' self-assessments of preparedness for internship correlate with their internship directors' overall assessments. A questionnaire to assess interns' competencies was developed and sent to the directors of the internship programs of the 283 1990 and 1991 graduates of the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine who consented to participate in the study (82% of the graduates). Eighty percent of the program directors responded. A similar questionnaire was sent to all 342 of the 1990 and 1991 graduates; 38% provided self-assessments of their competencies and also stated their views on how well prepared they were for their internships. Considering the classes as a group, the mean ratings of the interns' overall competencies by the program directors ranged from 3.7 to 4.3 on a five-point Likert scale (1, unsatisfactory, to 5, outstanding), whereas the interns' ratings of how well they were prepared for their internships (that is, their sense of overall competency) were somewhat lower, ranging from 3.4 to 4.0. The correlations of GPAs with the specific areas of competencies ranged from .28 to .51. The correlation between the mean ratings of the program directors and the mean self-ratings of the interns was .58. The data support the conclusions that medical school academic performance relates significantly to performance in internship and that interns do not rate themselves as highly as their program directors do.

Achievement↗

PubMedDate not supplied

After Hurricane Floyd passed: investigating the social determinants of disaster preparedness and recovery.

In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd struck eastern North Carolina. Investigators from the health promotion study "Health Works for Women/Health Works in the Community" responded by initiating a focused research study, "Health Works After the Flood." Participatory research involving a multilevel design and qualitative methods was applied to investigate how community preparedness, response, and recovery are affected by social factors such as social capital, social cohesion, and collective efficacy. This article presents evidence from qualitative research conducted for "Health Works After the Flood" and links these findings to observations regarding current conceptualizations of social capital and related concepts.

Community Networks↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Effectiveness of an emergency preparedness training program for public health nurses in New York City.

A public health workforce that is competent to respond to emergencies is extremely important. We report on the impact of a training program designed to prepare public health nurses to respond appropriately to emergencies. The program focused on the basic public health emergency preparedness competencies and the emergency response role of public health workers employed by the New York City School Department of Health and Mental Hygiene School Health Program. The evaluation methods included pre/post-testing followed by a repeat post-test one month after the program. The program resulted in positive shifts in both knowledge and emergency response attitudes.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1999

Probabilistic approach to derive operational intervention levels for nuclear emergency preparedness.

A probabilistic approach is presented for the derivation of operational intervention levels as guidelines for intervention in a nuclear emergency. The probabilistic approach differs from the standard, deterministic approach in that the many variables needed for a risk and dose estimate are allowed to fluctuate and sampled, rather than using point estimate of key parameters. The fluctuations have a large effect on the operational intervention levels, leading to optimized levels that depend both on the accident scenario and on the distance from the site of the hypothetical accident. The methodology is illustrated for the case of dose rate operational intervention levels for sheltering. At distances larger than a few kilometers, values of dose rate operational intervention levels are obtained that are considerably higher than values developed through deterministic practices. As demonstrated, calculations of site-specific operational intervention levels can augment the emergency preparedness for nuclear facilities. In principle, the approach can be expanded to yield optimized emergency response planning for any nuclear facility subject to various accident conditions.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed2006

Emergency preparedness for the home healthcare nurse.

Recent events are quickly becoming the hard teacher: giving tests of preparedness first, then allowing for lessons afterward. However, each emergency teaches valuable lessons about assessment and preparation, and each lesson learned can be integrated into assessment of and preparation for the next event. This article outlines key steps that home care nurses can take to ensure patient safety during emergencies or disasters.

Communicable Disease Control↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Educational preparedness for physical therapists and occupational therapists in burn care.

The background of physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) students in burn care training may be variable during their professional education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether professional programs in PT and OT are meeting the burn care educational needs of their students. PTs and OTs currently practicing in burn care were asked to give their opinion of the most important curricular topics related to burn care, report their perception of their own entry-level preparedness for burn care, recount therapy interns preparation for burn care internships, and recommend topics that should be included in a therapy program burn care curriculum. Therapists felt prepared in basic sciences and somewhat prepared in specific burn care practice topics. Study participants felt more prepared for burn practice if they completed an internship in burn care. Enhancing content on burn-related treatment interventions was the most common suggestion for curricular revision.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Emergency preparedness competencies: assessing nurses' educational needs.

This article reports findings from a research study designed to assess the level of familiarity Wisconsin nurses have regarding their response to large-scale emergency events. The research process identified 8 emergency preparedness dimensions, which were then investigated in the study. Efforts were also undertaken to determine the types of educational offerings and class-scheduling options most preferred by nurses.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Lack of preparedness: experiences of first-time mothers.

PURPOSE: To examine the experiences of first-time mothers following discharge from the hospital after vaginal delivery. STUDY DESIGN AND METHOD: Qualitative, grounded theory. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants guided by open-ended semistructured questions. All interviews took place in the participants' homes within 4 weeks of delivery and were tape-recorded. Data collection and analysis occurred simultaneously. Open coding and selective coding were utilized to identify and refine concepts. Participants were primiparous, drawn from an urban location in the northeastern United States, English-speaking, and 18 to 35 years of age. RESULTS: Following the dramatic changes of pregnancy and delivery, the women in this study returned home feeling unprepared to care for themselves and their babies. Because of their lack of preparedness at a time of increased responsibility and vulnerability, they were overwhelmed. Exhausted, feeling unwell and isolated, they struggled to adapt to new role expectations. Propelled into information seeking by their lack of knowledge, they were further hampered by conflicting and fragmented advice. Family and friends were the primary sources for information for the majority of these new mothers, not healthcare professionals or services. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Insight into the experiences of first-time mothers provides a framework for additional research and the development of programs and resources that will address their unique needs.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Local and state collaboration for effective preparedness planning.

State and local collaboration is critical to effective preparedness and response planning. Through various assessments, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is tracking the way in which local and state public health agencies are coordinating their planning efforts to ensure adequate bioterrorism and emergency response capacities. NACCHO's analysis of planning provides a case study of effective and ineffective collaboration. NACCHO intends to share these lessons to provide local and state public health agencies with strategies for enhancing collaboration in the future.

Bioterrorism↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Turning point sets the stage for emergency preparedness planning.

Nearly a billion dollars were made available to state health departments through federal grants in the spring of 2002 for public health emergency preparedness plans. Twenty-one states had already been participating for some years in The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Turning Point Initiative. This article illustrates how earlier practice and experience in developing cross-sector collaborations and institutionalizing a model of broad-based partnerships for public health decision making can increase effectiveness and efficiency in responding to a call for action around an emergency.

Bioterrorism↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Roadmap for public health workforce preparedness.

Major initiatives to improve the public health workforce since 1997 have been driven by a hundred-fold increase in federal financial support, technologies providing greater access to public health workers, and an emerging national priority to prepare for and respond to bioterrorism and other urgent threats. This report examines the status of the national public health workforce development agenda, including its major strategies and emphases, and offers a roadmap for assessing, enhancing, and recognizing competent performance through comprehensive public health workforce preparedness management systems.

Competency-Based Education↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A case exercise in public health preparedness: a community outbreak of influenza-like illness.

Public health emergency preparedness has been a priority of local and state health departments as well as other community partners for several years. This article provides a tool for teaching a wide audience of learners the essential steps in training for a disease outbreak. This teaching case involves an investigation of and the community's response to an outbreak of influenza-like illness. Students learn skills in surveillance and hypothesis generation with regard to the outbreak. During the exercise, the learners are divided into teams to develop a response plan. The teams include Command and Coordination, Public Communication, Hospitals and Health Care Providers, Emergency Management and Public Safety, and Public Health. While the teams are developing their response plan, the etiology of the outbreak becomes clear. Once the etiology is known, each of the teams then develops an action plan to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Disaster Planning↗

PubMed2005

Preparedness of hospitals to respond to a radiological terrorism event as assessed by a full-scale exercise.

Hospitals and healthcare workers face the challenge of being prepared to manage victims of acts of terrorism that involve chemical, biological, and radiological agents that they do not commonly encounter. One example that is often cited as a potential terrorism scenario is the use of a conventional explosive that is mixed with radioactive material. On November 10, 2004, we conducted a regional multihospital full-scale exercise involving 11 hospitals and 358 victim-observers to evaluate hospital preparedness for such an event. Our results demonstrate that hospitals are not adequately prepared to manage mass casualties with associated radiological contamination.

Disaster Planning↗

PubMed2005

Using problem-based learning as a strategy for cross-discipline emergency preparedness training.

The rapid and effective response to a bioterrorist event requires the coordinated efforts of trained personnel from different agencies. This article describes the design and implementation of a 1-week cross-disciplinary course employing problem-based learning (PBL) for professionals with backgrounds in public health, fire/emergency medical services (EMS), law enforcement, emergency management, and hospital administration. The curriculum provided opportunities for professionals from different disciplines to meet and learn the priorities and resources of partner agencies. In course evaluations, participants rated the training highly and found it applicable to their work and a good use of time and training resources. PBL techniques were successful in fostering cross-agency communication, thereby showing promise as an effective training method for meeting local and national emergency preparedness objectives.

Bioterrorism↗

PubMed2005

Development of a training curriculum for public health preparedness.

We describe the development of a 2-day training curriculum in emergency public health to improve the competency of public health personnel to prepare for, and respond to, both natural and human-caused disaster hazards. The training is conducted in a face-to-face setting and content is mapped to recognized emergency preparedness competencies for public health workers. The training materials are uniquely structured to the specific hazards, demographics, resources, and local emergency response agencies for each jurisdiction. This training program incorporates a series of challenging interactive scenarios that reinforce decision making in a public health emergency. Pretesting and posttesting are used to evaluate knowledge gained by participants. This interactive approach aligns with the principles of adult learning, and training evaluations indicate that this method is an effective integration of process and content.

Competency-Based Education↗

PubMed2005

Emergency department preparedness trainings in New York State: a needs assessment.

An assessment of preparedness training of emergency department (ED) staff in many upstate New York hospitals was carried out using an institutional review board-approved questionnaire. Several aspects of training such as content, quality, quantity, methodology, and skills obtained as a result of trainings were examined. The results suggest that respondents in upstate New York would like to see more training on specific topics of information (chemical and radiological concerns) and the utilization of new technologies, such as on-line courses, to optimize time commitments.

Bioterrorism↗

PubMed2002

Bioterrorism vs. health security--crafting a plan of preparedness.

Bioterrorism, once a subject of fantasy and speculation, has become all too real in a world turned upside down by the September 11, 2001. series of events. An essential, but as yet unanswered, question has become a crucial topic for discussion on the nightly news and in living rooms across the United States: How much of a terrorist threat do we face, and what must be done to control its potential for mass destruction? This article seeks to both answer this question and explore proper plans of preparedness for the eventuality of the unthinkable.

Anthrax↗