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Showing posts from October, 2020

Confidence just with unity

It is respectful to work with experts on their recommendations, sure. It's also wise, though, and it strengthens mutual confidence.  Just by refining unity, we can hold mutual confidence with global health leadership. Global health experts are asking countries to take note of technology, digital population management tools and other broad, creative strategies. We should listen, dialogue and host public forums for international representatives to agree and align. We should respect the due north of technology wins. This respect will secure a solid footing for upcoming pandemics as well. Read more here.   Global health experts are asking countries to acknowledge and address surges and surge risks in the coming weeks and months. COVID is not going to go away. Countries are not doing enough to reach out and listen to WHO experts on reduction work. We should reach out internationally and ask our governments to model dialogue. Read more here.   Global health experts are asking ...

A Eureka For Operations

  Planning for a future pandemic requires commitment to present-day personal improvement in vaccine management.  Operations that create efficient, streamlined vaccination record-keeping improve management, production, distribution predictions and planning. Here are three ways the world should support WHO and its partnerships as they strive for efficiency in vaccination record-keeping. Privacy Technology that creates local record-keeping for vaccinations is already in place. Many countries have medical records from various health corporations, and these records should not be viewed as one-offs. They are vulnerable to online risk and they are a part of large healthcare networks, accessible by many. The public is already exposed to digital record-keeping in massive doses. Many countries have national vaccination record-keeping and some states in the US do as well. Discussions around privacy and a digital vaccine record for pandemics should be honest about where we already are. No...

Staying

 The "Solidarity" trials to for clinical research for COVID-19 should be accompanied by strong sustainability and ethics. There is no room for error, nor verbose sidestepping. It is important to be clear, direct and efficient for the public.  * What will be done to assure diversity in trial reach for the six countries involved? * Will the template for consent, IRB streamlining and other international work be formalized for continued use with future public health crises?  * What will partnerships look like for pharmaceutical companies involved? What will medical home models look like for follow up, etc, and who will assure benefits of sustained delivery post-trial?  * Rather than be moved around from location to location, forming and disrupting trusted community bonding, what will Solidarity trial planners do to assure long-term medical improvement build from these foundations? This includes local medical education, technological infrastructure support, pharmacy acces...

To Have and Have Not

Global health must view current pandemic reports as works in progress. Recommendations should be issued, organized and available for future outbreaks. To start the recommendation organization, we could observe WHO's outstanding COVID update :  Four areas can grow from this well-thought out, rapidly disseminated work. Four movements should be: ⦾ Establishing a summarized table of performance indicators for COVID readiness, for easy consumption. ⦾ Specifying recommendations by indicator; current indicators are not captioned with specific points. * The five indicators for future roadmapping could be accompanied by a couple of actionable items. What resources are available to progress for the proportion of priority countries and territories with an active risk communication/commnity engagement mechanism, proportion with an Incident Management Support Team/IPC training, proportion with identified core set of essential services, proportion that has had an immunizati...

Crossroads of supply

In preparation for future outbreaks, supply management in pandemic operations should be examined and evaluated now. WHO has done exceptional work in communication, streamlining supply request operations and providing available, up to date information around supply.   IDSA and infectious disease communities have provided exceptional expertise in rapid response. This includes ongoing analyses around  lab comparison   and   testing strategies .  Labor, government, diplomacy and other individual country contributions have provided immediate, attentive compassion. Notably, work around laboratory supply test explanation to the public   and   direct ask to every laboratory test for data aggregation   is critical.  All of this effort should be supported with immediate improvement teams in the global arena.  Opportunities for improvement global health pandemic management supply could emphasize:        ⦾  Evaluatio...