Solutions

Structural Adaptivity, Before and After Thoughts

Tue, 2014-11-04 12:57 — WDS1200-Columbus

As a means of concluding these writings on Structural Adaptivity and Resilience, following are some of the background thoughts, with recent revision, that led me to my proposals. Originally, my writings were directed at city and regional planning. However now I realize they are also about resilience. I hope my submittals will be helpful. I will try to write more soon.

Time. Planners, resilience makers, and all other leaders and professionals dealing with the built environment must focus on long time spans. In order to have significant impact on the future of our world, we must recognize that only by looking at big chunks of history and big chunks of future time can we really see the reality of what is going on. Likewise, we need to do so in order to see the reality of what needs to be done.

Typical urban or regional plans target a future some 20 years ahead. Moreover, they typically are based on past trends of 20 years or so. However, our world does not change in 20-year cycles. Twenty years is a very short time period in the flow of transformation.

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Emergency Preparedness: Ebola Outbreak Response

Mon, 2014-11-03 12:51 — mike kraft

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MedEdPORTAL Nov. 3, 2014

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC),in response to the Ebola, outbreak, has created on its MedEdPORTAL created this collection of peer-reviewed teaching materials, new and innovative resources (non peer-reviewed), and online continuing education activities for practicing healthcare providers focused on emergency preparedness for outbreaks.

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Hospital Records Are Adapting to Flag Ebola

Mon, 2014-11-03 11:52 — mike kraft

A New Application Matches Patient’s Travel and Family History With Medical Symptoms

WALL STREET JOURNAL Nov. 3, 2014
By Melina Beck

A month ago, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston had no way to flag in its electronic medical records if an incoming patient had been to West Africa and had symptoms suggesting Ebola.

Now it does. Five days after the first U.S. case was confirmed in Texas, the hospital deployed a new Ebola application made by QPID Health Inc. that automatically matches a patient’s travel and family history with medical symptoms. If Ebola is suspected, the application flashes a blinking “Q” to alert hospital personnel.

Dr. Garry Choy, who helped design Mass General’s QPID system. Dominick Reuter

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Can a U.S. military Ebola treatment center slow Ebola in one hard-hit city?

Mon, 2014-11-03 07:59 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST Nov. 3, 2014
By Kevin Sieff

GANTA, LIBERIA --
The U.S. is erecting a new Ebola treatment center, slated to be finished later this month and manned by newly imported doctors. Just the sight of American helicopters flying over Ganta, a city of about 50,000, has lifted hopes here.

...a modern treatment center won’t be enough to eliminate Ebola in a place where the outbreak appears to rise and fall every few weeks and where victims sometimes disappear into remote communities with the disease. The question is whether those victims can be persuaded to use the new facility once it is built, preventing the spread of the disease in some of the country’s most vulnerable areas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/can-a-us-military-ebola-treatment-center-slow-ebola-in-one-hard-hit-city/2014/11/01/afb7b058-60fd-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html

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UK to build three new Ebola labs in Sierra Leone

Sat, 2014-11-01 22:07 — mike kraft

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Nov. 1, 2014
By Colin Freeman

Britain has pledged £20 million to build three new Ebola testing laboratories in Sierra Leone, a move that will save lives by slashing the time required to tell whether a patient has the virus.

Chinese medical workers training staff in protection against ebola at the Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone Photo: Xinhua News Agency/REX

At present, the sheer number of cases is overwhelming the ability of testing labs to cope, with a wait of up to five days or more for results to come back.

The building of the new labs is expected to reduce that time to a 24-hour turn around, meaning that patients who later get the all-clear do not have to spend several days waiting in treatment centres where they might be at risk of infection.

Read complete story

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WHO Updates Guidelines on Ebola Protective Gear

Sat, 2014-11-01 14:44 — mike kraft

WHO Oct. 31, 2014
GENEVA-- The World Health Organization \ WHO has conducted a formal review of personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines for healthcare workers and is updating its guidelines in context of the current outbreak.

A U.S. doctor in a protective suit in Liberia adjust that of a colleague before entering an Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia in this photo released Sept. 16, 2014.

These updated guidelines aim to clarify and standardize safe and effective PPE options to protect health care workers and patients, as well as provide information for procurement of PPE stock in the current Ebola outbreak. The guidelines are based on a review of evidence of PPE use during care of suspected and confirmed Ebola virus disease patients.

Read complete announcement

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/ebola-ppe-guidelines/en/

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Better Staffing Seen as Crucial to Ebola Treatment in Africa

Sat, 2014-11-01 10:36 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES Nov. 1, 2014

By Denise Grady

...The stark difference in the care available in West Africa and the United States is reflected in the outcomes...., In West Africa, 70 percent of people with Ebola are dying, while seven of the first eight Ebola patients treated in the United States have walked out of the hospital in good health. Only one died: Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, whose treatment was delayed when a Dallas hospital initially misdiagnosed his illness.

Dr. Rick Sacra, a missionary who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and was successfully treated at the Nebraska Medical Center. Credit Brendan Sullivan/Omaha World-Herald, via Associated Press

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U.S. military to train more Ebola response teams

Sat, 2014-11-01 10:15 — mike kraft

USA TODAY Oct. 31, 2014
Patricia Kime, Military Times

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military will train more medical personnel to respond to domestic cases of Ebola should they occur, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday.

(Photo: Senior Airman Kayla Newman / Air Force)

Plans are under way to form more military Ebola medical response teams similar to the 30-member group that completed training this week at San Antonio Military Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The official said the Pentagon is anticipating a request from the Health and Human Services Department for more medical personnel who would respond on short notice to civilian medical facilities should they need help treating Ebola patients....

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EBOLA EPIDEMIOLOGY: Strategies for containing Ebola in West Africa

Fri, 2014-10-31 20:52 — mike kraft

SCIENCE MAGAZINE Oct. 30, 2014

A study to assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, using a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia.

ABSTRACT

The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact tracing with quarantine and sanitary funeral practices must be implemented with utmost urgency in order to reverse the growth of the outbreak. Under status quo intervention, our projections indicate that the Ebola outbreak will continue to spread, generating a predicted 224 (95% CI: 134 – 358) cases daily in Liberia alone by December, highlighting the need for swift application of multifaceted control interventions.

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Home> International Liberia Opens 1 of Largest Ebola Treatment Centers

Fri, 2014-10-31 19:16 — mike kraft

In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, aid is offloaded to be used in the fight of the Ebola virus, as it arrives by air from America at the airport in Conakry, Guinea. No African countries are on the United Nations list of contributors to fight the Ebola epidemic, and angry legislators from Sierra Leone and Liberia got up to protest at a session on peace and security at the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa last "They said as far as they are concerned, nobody wants to talk about Ebola," said Jeggan Grey-Johnson, a governance expert. (AP Photo/ Youssouf Bah)

REUTERS Oct. 31, 2014
ByJonathan Paye-Layleh

MONROVIA, Liberia —Remembering those who have died in the world's deadliest Ebola outbreak, Liberia's president opened one of the country's largest Ebola treatment centers in Monrovia on Friday amid hopes that the disease is finally on the decline in this West African country.

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