Categories
Crisis Global Health Public Health

Opioids given and monitored by the government instead of various clinics?

In City of Vancouver, a pilot program began in providing Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid used to manage severe pain (it is about 50-100 times more potent than morphine). Public Health Agency of Canada | Agence de la santé publique du Canada finances the program and it is all legal – with the goal of harm reduction for those in need of the drug. This approach is aimed to reduce deaths and severe illnesses from illicit drugs by making the drugs safer for people who use them.

Last year, over 20+ United States Attorneys’​ Offices reject the current bankruptcy plan offered by Purdue Pharma L.P., who have ongoing claims against them for their role in the opioid epidemic in United States. This addiction crisis in the US has killed more than 450,000 Americans.

Today’s thoughts may be deeply controversial in the United States, but how can we provide harm reduction (ie reduce the overdoses) while at the same time providing quality care for those in need of such potent pain medication?

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Mental Health Public Health Research

A Clean Bill of Health Newsletter – June 23, 2022

Peek Inside today’s A Clean Bill of Health Newsletter:

– US President Biden approved State of Montana’s request for a major disaster declaration, which sets in motion federal aid for the three counties devastated by severe flooding in Yellowstone Park, per The Washington Post.

– LinkedIn News Top 25 Healthcare companies to grow your career:
1. Kaiser Permanente | 2. Arthrex | 3. Parexel | 4. athenahealth | 5. Teladoc Health | 6. Walgreens Boots Alliance | 7. MicroVention-Terumo | 8. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine | 9. CVS Health | 10. City of Hope | 11. ZEISS Medical Technology | 12. Hologic, Inc. | 13. Allscripts | 14. UnitedHealth Group | 15. Galderma | 16. Avanos Medical | 17. Curology | 18. UChicago Medicine | 19. Varian | 20. University of Maryland Medical Center | 21. The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson | 22. Nevro | 23. Medtronic | 24. Pfizer | 25. Elanco

Which company should I visit this Summer? Help me and tag people in the thread!

– Latest review on the impact by COVID-19 lockdown on the performing and creative artists in the entertainment industry was just published in Elsevier Social Sciences & Humanities Open Journal.

– Next Week Free Webinar on Tuesday, June 28 at 1 PM EDT with researchers and practitioners University of Washington, US Maritime Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and WESTON MEDICAL PUBLISHING, LLC in the mental health area and in the maritime industry

Our newsletter community is growing and thank you for your emails, comments, and messages! We are building a newsletter that constantly empowers and connects all the various ways we strive for a clean bill of health.

Please continue to help me spread the word!

Categories
Crisis Public Health

Severe Flooding in Yellowstone Park

Did you hear about the Major Disaster Declaration last week over the severe flooding in Yellowstone Park?

Last week, US President Biden approved Montana’s request for a major disaster declaration, which sets in motion federal aid for the three counties devastated by severe flooding in Yellowstone Park.

Per the Washington Post, the unprecedented destruction has left many people in the region uneasy about their futures. Extreme weather, from record-breaking heat waves to raging wildfires to more powerful hurricanes, is accelerating as global temperatures rise, destroying livelihoods and putting strain on all kinds of communities just like Yellowstone. Recent news are reporting many residents being stranded and lost their homes.

Photo Credit WP
Map of affected area – Credit: NWS

From one of my research studies on severe flooding (upcoming in-press publication coming soon) included interviews and focus groups of people who were flooded in the UK. From this research, many people reported feeling skeptical after a severe flood that change for the best will happen to them locally despite the news coverage and financial support (which tend to be limited amount and difficult to access). Some of this skeptical feeling was said to be connected to lack of awareness and support felt once the news coverage and financial support disappeared.

Categories
Crisis Global Health Public Health Research

New Study on Basic Emergency Care education course in Ukraine

BMJ open - BEC course in Ukraine

New paper is out now! The publication is open-access and the web link is https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/6/e050871.

Publication Title: Evaluation of change in emergency care knowledge and skills among front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine with the Basic Emergency Care course: a pretest/post-test study

Abstract:
Objective: Evaluate the change in participant emergency care knowledge and skill confidence after implementation of the WHO-International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Basic Emergency Care (BEC) course.
Design: Pretest/post-test quasi-experimental study.
Setting: Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Participants: Seventy-nine participants engaged in the course, of whom 50 (63.3%) completed all assessment tools. The course was open to healthcare providers of any level who assess and treat emergency conditions as part of their practice. The most common participant profession was resident physician (24%), followed by health educator (18%) and prehospital provider (14%).
Interventions: The 5-day WHO-ICRC BEC course.
Primary and secondary outcome measures Change in pre-course and post-course knowledge and skill confidence assessments. Open-ended written feedback was collected upon course completion and analysed for common themes.
Results: Participant knowledge assessment scores improved from 19 (IQR 15–20) to 22 (IQR 19–23) on a 25-point scale (p<0.001). Participant skill confidence self-assessment scores improved from 2.5 (IQR 2.1–2.8) to 2.9 (IQR 2.5–3.3) on a 4-point scale (p<0.001). The most common positive feedback themes were high-quality teaching and useful skill sessions. The most common constructive feedback themes were translation challenges & request for additional skill session time.
Conclusions: This first implementation of the WHO-ICRC BEC course for front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine was successful and well received by participants. This is also the first report of a BEC implementation outside of Africa and suggests that the course is also effective in the European context, particularly in humanitarian crisis and conflict settings. Future research should evaluate long-term knowledge retention and the impact on patient outcomes. Further iterations should emphasise local language translation and consider expanding clinical skills sessions.

Categories
Public Health

Are you subscribed to my newsletter yet?

Having a weekly newsletter isn’t an easy task especially when not selling anything. For the past 13 weeks, I have curated conversational and important updates to public health, healthcare, and technology intersectional space.

Our growing newsletter community is now over 800 people strong, and thank you for your supportive emails, comments, and messages! We are building a newsletter that constantly empowers and connects all the various ways we strive for a clean bill of health.

In the latest ‘A Clean Bill of Health’ newsletter, we discuss briefly past week’s well-attended and wonderful Zoom webinar on the mental health research of emergency management and public health professionals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you for everyone joining us!

We also share the neat healthcare technology case in hospitals for improving patient experiences with the partnership of Feedtrail & Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

Please continue to help me spread the word!

Quote of the week:
“We all get scared and want to turn away, but it isn’t always strength that makes you stay. Strength is also making the decision to change your destiny.”
~ Zoraida Córdova, Labyrinth Lost #quoteoftheweek #dailyquote

Categories
Mental Health

2022 Mental Health Awareness Month

Take Action for Mental Health
Take Action for Mental Health

Action is needed to help curb the growing realities of mental health issues among adults and youths. Today may be the last day of #mentalhealthawarenessmonth but our work to improve our mental health is something that extends more than a month – we must be aware and act everyday. 

For example, recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study shows evidence of ‘persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness’ growing among United States high school students throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Per @WHO, full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021 was approximately 14.9 million deaths (with a range from 13.3 to 16.6 million).

One of key takeaway from the @CDCgov study:
-> Poor mental health, persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors were LESS PREVALENT among those who felt CLOSE TO PEOPLE at school and were virtually connected with others during the pandemic.

🎥 Check out “Speaking on Mental Health” below – it was created by students & supported by @DirectChangeCA @takeactionformh @LACDMH

Categories
Public Health Research

How can we create frictionless experiences to connect the elderly populations to their healthcare teams?

There is an ongoing assumption that elderly communities are averse to technology, but that is not true. Could it be that the digital health companies are just not designing for their needs and/or improving educational outreach efforts to teach new tech advancements?

In past years, colleagues and I have been discussing the practicalities of using emerging technologies to address the growing issue of elderly loneliness and its implications and adaptations to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Technological advancements have offered remarkable opportunities to deliver care and maintain connections despite the need to stay physically separated. These tools can be integrated into crisis communications, public health responses, and healthcare programs to help the elderly communities. However, it must be done strategically and informed by the type of loneliness at play, environmental factors, socioeconomics, and technological literacy (including feedback to improve tech design and function).

What are ways your teams are creating frictionless experiences to connect to the elderly populations?

Categories
Crisis Public Health Research

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your risk to wildfire?

Fire Risk Projections in US

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your city’s risk for wildfire?

Latest modeling built by First Street Foundation shows estimates for America in 2052 along with developing a public estimation tool labeled Fire Factor. The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model incorporates information on fuels, wildfire weather, and ignition into a Fire Behavior Model, building upon and updating the 2016 U.S. Forest Service dataset. Last year, First Street Foundation reported about flood risk in the United States to grow exponentially in upcoming years due to climate change.

Did you know that supporting wildfire suppression at the local, state, and federal levels in the United States is among the most expensive wildfire protection efforts?

Currently, it is costing the US government about $2.0 billion annually. These costs are projected to increase, as recently modeling shows an increased risk to more areas, including areas where fire risks were not historically present but now are.

Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

“No jab, No job” – latest on vaccine mandate in workplace

“No jab, No job” is being passed around the workplaces this week. Announcement is from Citi to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy, marking first major bank with such policy.

Continue reading ““No jab, No job” – latest on vaccine mandate in workplace”
Categories
COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health

Retail shops reducing hours due to surging COVID-19 cases

Happy New Year! Last year ended with ongoing debate and even backlash about the COVID-19 vaccine mandates at many companies to help curb new infections at workplace. This year opened with retailers reducing hours regardless of vaccine status.

Continue reading “Retail shops reducing hours due to surging COVID-19 cases”