Technology in Healthcare

When infection and disease that are of high public health importance are diagnosed by laboratories and doctors they are required to report this information to local, state, and national agencies such as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Shaw & Elliott (2012) says, “This permits surveillance (that is, the collection of statistics on the frequency with which the disease occurs), which in turn allows these agencies to identify trends in disease occurrence as well as disease outbreaks” (pg. 158).

These individuals are trained to respond to outbreaks and other disasters and their response is to find out why people are getting sick, how they can prevent the disease from spreading and importantly, how to save lives and protect people. These officers are like detectives and use investigation measures to look for clues on how an outbreak happens. They look for germs, viruses, and bacteria or other types of samples in locations when an outbreak is occurring. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also uses their network to alert the health care community of recognizing and assessing an outbreak so that they can distinguish it on patient level care and a first contact basis. The CDC also works mutually with State health departments, local academic, government and private sectors to establish Emerging Infections Programs and other sites. Depending on the severity of the outbreak the CDC also collaborates with the World Health organization in case infected individuals have traveled to other parts of the world (Public Health Emergency Response: The CDC Role,

During an epidemic I would anticipate the local health system would be taxed in order to respond to the number of cases impacted by the outbreak. Utilization of the current health care settings, whether it be primary physician offices, Urgent Care or the Emergency Department the ability to triage, staff and provide supplies for these facilities would be challenging. Additional facilities may be incorporated into the reporting system in order to function as overflow from these clinic sites

In America, on the state, federal and local Public health organizations use informatics widely. Especially the federal government, most of their research is centered on informatics science and digital technology that will have a great influence on public health. Public health informatics has improved public health and public health services offered to Americans over the last two decades in many ways. For instance, upgrades in technology and transformation in how health care is delivered are just to name a few. Computer systems are not as expensive as the use to be and they are quicker than before. In the past, in information system development projects computer hardware was the foremost expensive cost. Opposed to the past, we now have the World Wide Web that includes graphic and universal communication is also enhanced. The development of the enhanced graphics and communication offers a powerful new example for standardized implementation for all information systems. Streamlining is especially easy since the new development of the web application. Updating and upgrading applications can be accessed immediately without the use of the software. With that being said, the developments in today’s informatics system are more easily made possible and better to understand. Still there is so much being worked on and being more improved upon

The CDC is working to control the deaths that are caused that are disabling humans.

Prior to October 1, 2015, the United States was the only developed nation that was not already using ICD-10-CM. This hindered the United States’ ability to share disease information globally and respond to public health threats. Utilizing ICD-10-CM will help to identify, confirm

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website provides tools and resources to the public on health issues and more which is ideal for educating our society. You can find outbreak information which allows you to become aware of health issues so that it’s possible to protection you and your family. On CDC’s website, I found information on wildfire smoke which is important if you live in an area that is frequently affected by fires so that you can prepare you and your family for future fires and the health issues associated with fires. I also located data and statistics by topic on CDC’s website and found numerous diseases and other health related issues which is important to be informed on what is happening around us and how we can better protect ourselves. CDC’s website contains information on emergency preparedness and thought it was important because not everyone is educated on the steps to protect you and your family. The information and features I came across applies to the medical field in aspects of patient education and knowing the steps to protecting our society against diseases and health related issues. The director of the CDC is Brenda Fitzgerald, MD who plays a key role in helping to protect the world from the threat of deadly diseases. Fitzgerald has responsibilities to know medicine, science, public health, policy and leadership to best support and protect

This system frees up the amount of time that physicians spend documenting patient information, allowing them to focus on providing quality healthcare.

There are several advantages and disadvantages of switching to the new system of data collection for each group involved. The first advantage is making data collection and reporting standards nationally & locally for the area of interest or disease process. Second, the format and protocol for HL7 is standardized via electronic data exchange between healthcare computer applications. The data process moves toward a complete and organized way to collect data that provides information important to public health operations (O’Carroll et al, 2010). On the

Also, ‘big data’ analytics and aggregated patient data may be able to alert providers to larger health trends such as potential outbreaks and which flu strains are prominent during each flu season.

The NNDSS is a national program that provides provisional information on the occurrence of notifiable diseases and acts as a surveillance system. The primary data source for the NNDSS is the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), a secure online platform that facilitates communication between healthcare professionals and federal agencies on disease patterns. Surveillance data is obtained through reports at the local, state, and territorial public health departments, where it is mandated for all healthcare providers, hospitals, and laboratories to report specific infections. NEDSS implements national consensus standards to improve public health investigation workflow and sharing of disease-related health information (CDC, 2017d). Data is analyzed to monitor trends, published and shared through the

It is important to have systems that are constructed similarly and able to communicate with each other. Syndromic surveillance has been accepted as a way to monitor disease outbreaks and bioterrorism attacks (Chen et al., 2010). According to Henning (2004), “Syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.” Additionally, “The fundamental objective of syndromic surveillance is to identify illness clusters early, before diagnoses are confirmed and reported to public health agencies, and to mobilize a rapid response, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality” (Henning, 2004). Evaluation of the success of this type of surveillance can be monitored based on the data reported to and archived by the

The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is used nationwide to track healthcare-associated infections. NHSN provides data needed to identify problem areas, measure the progress of prevention, and help to eliminate healthcare-associated infections (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015a). The NHSN provides a surveillance tool that hospitals can use to track VAP events. The CDC

The next role, related to disease outbreak, public health plays in emergency preparedness and response is laboratory investigation and analysis. Laboratories are able to identify agents, biological and chemical, through different activities and then they are able to link it to other cases that had similar sources (Turnock, 2011 p. 426). Intervention is the next role, related to disease outbreak, that public health plays in emergency preparedness and response. One of the main reasons why collecting, investigating, and distributing the information about a disease is important is because it is a part of the process of controlling the disease from spreading (Turnock, 2011 p. 426). Interventions that are created to protect people in the community from the risk that are associated with a disease include: “setting standards for health and safety, inspecting food production and importation facilities, monitoring environmental conditions that foster infectious disease and enforcing private-sector compliance with established standards” (Turnock, 2011 p. 426).

There are six core functions of epidemiology (Dicker, Coronado, Koo, & Parrish, 2012). The first function is public health surveillance. Public health surveillance can be defined as the method of collecting and analyzing data to better serve the health and well-being of the public efficiently and effectively. For example, if hospitals start seeing more cases of tuberculosis epidemiologists can analyze collected data to find a pattern or commonality among those who were treated. If they find that the majority of patients are from the same geographical location, they may want to concentrate their field investigation efforts in that area. Public health surveillance is important to the study of