Health

NEW YORK TIMES          Oct. 3, 2014

DALLAS TEX.      

On Thursday, the hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, released a statement essentially blaming a flaw in its electronic health records system for its decision to send the patient — Thomas E. Duncan, a Liberian national visiting his girlfriend and relatives in the United States — home the first time he visited its emergency room, Sept. 25. It said there were separate “workflows” for doctors and nurses in the records so the doctors did not receive the information that he had come from Africa.

But on Friday evening, the hospital effectively retracted that portion of its statement, saying that “there was no flaw” in its electronic health records system. The hospital said “the patient’s travel history was documented and available to the full care team in the electronic health record (E.H.R.), including within the physician’s workflow.”

cnn.com - October 1, 2014

CNN's Jake Tapper speaks to Gavin Macgregor-Skinner and Jeffery Stern. With the first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S., is the country prepared to handle a potential outbreak?

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2014/10/01/only-four-u-s-hospitals-prepared-for-outbreak/

BBC            October 3, 2014

A hospital in the German city of Frankfurt-on-Main has taken in an Ebola patient after he was flown in during the night under tight security.

He is a Ugandan doctor who worked with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. After arriving on a medical flight, the man was brought to Frankfurt University Hospital where he was placed in an isolation ward.

It is Germany's second case, with a man undergoing treatment in Hamburg after arriving from West Africa in August.

The Frankfurt hospital said the patient's arrival had gone well.

Hesse Minister of Social Affairs Stefan Gruettner said the patient had been working for an Italian aid organisation in Sierra Leone and had helped Ebola sufferers there before becoming infected himself.

Full Story
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29473623

Medical staff in protective equipment attend the arrival of the Ebola patient at Frankfurt University Hospital

NEW YORK TIMES              October 3, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — The arrival in the United States of a Liberian man infected with the Ebola virus shows how difficult it is to control or restrict the disease from spreading, and how porous current procedures are in a world of globalized air travel.

Liberian officials said on Thursday that they planned to prosecute the passenger, Thomas E. Duncan, for lying on an airport questionnaire about not having contact with a person infected with Ebola before his travel — a pivotal part of the country’s screening process.

Mr. Duncan took three planes as he flew from Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to Dallas last month, connecting in Brussels and Washington.