Bioterrorism entails the global dissemination of viruses or bacterial agents that have been modified to bring about an epidemic within the area in which they have been released. Such bacterial agents and viruses are always meant to kill human beings of a specific area or race or to kill certain plants and inhibit their future growth. Bioterror has become rampant in the 21 st century, and this has been a challenge for the Centers for Disease Control since bacterial agents used by terrorists are difficult to detect, and by the time they are identified, enough damage has been done. Surveillance data collected about the environment and human population is usually based on surveys done on the bacterial agents and the area it has affected laboratory experiments and specimens, and reports recorded by hospitals and by individual doctors. Such data is vital in identifying the causes of the disease, the trends that the virus may have regarding mutation, and its patterns over an extended period since surveillance is about finding the problem and working towards health solutions. Clinical and administrative systems are vital in the war against bioterror. This is because of the nature of the data that they contribute to the public health surveillance systems. Clinical systems assist by providing electronic health information about patients whom they have served. This is useful to the surveillance systems since it helps them understand the likely trends of a disease and it helps in keeping statistics of the likelihood of an infection within a certain locality. Electronic health records provided by the clinical systems are therefore useful in providing patient demographics, medical diagnoses, and laboratory tests and results carried out in relation to a specific disease (Thomas, Atrubin & Hamilton, 2014). Administrative systems, on the other hand, are useful since they contribute data concerning health quality and advancements toward the eradication of certain diseases. This assists doctors and scientists understand the accurate picture of the condition and also maps the resources that are required for the elimination of the disease. Administrative systems are expected to liaise with emergency departments since it is the emergency departments that capture patient data. This assists the surveillance systems in understanding how many patients are insured, how many patients are likely to suffer from a certain disease, and how the emergency departments handle their cases. By doing this, clinical and administrative systems contribute large volumes of data that facilitate the detection of viruses and bacterial agents that are harmful to human beings. Surveillance systems are therefore tasked with the role of driving change toward the global health systems. This is because they help in influencing policy discussions on health-related issues. Such discussions are backed by the amount of data collected and this helps in conducting tests and finding possible solutions to some illnesses. Surveillance systems, therefore, facilitate knowledge of diseases and this helps in the evaluation and treatment of such infectious diseases. Surveillance systems have therefore changed the way emergency departments handle patients since they emphasize the collection of data from that point. This helps in developing systems that will facilitate the collection of data before and after treatment, especially in cases that involve food contamination. In the tackling of anthrax, the United States government has invested a lot of money in environmental and laboratory research that is useful to the Centers for Disease Control in their quest to prevent the disease and find lasting solutions to the same. Surveillance systems have therefore facilitated early detection, and they have limited the chances of anthrax attacks (surveillance, 2018). Surveillance systems have enabled follow-ups on the sources of human and animal infections that may lead to anthrax. This, in turn, has facilitated the liaison between human and animal departments regarding possible outbreaks and possible advancements in the prevention of anthrax. Therefore, surveillance systems have to work with veterinary surveillance systems in the war against anthrax infections. On account of the above points, it would suffice to conclude that surveillance systems help in detecting the manipulation of viruses and then assist in curbing the spread of such diseases. However, due to the reliance on human diseases to identify epidemics such as anthrax, surveillance systems have had to rely on the information given to them by the emergency departments of various health facilities to research possible cures and vaccines for viruses.
References
Module 1: Importance of Surveillance and Detection in Public Health Initiatives . (2018). Uniteforsight.org . Retrieved 2 May 2018, from http://www.uniteforsight.org/surveillance/module1
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Stavert-Dobson, A. (2016). MAINTAINING PATIENT SAFETY IN THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF HEALTH IT INFORMATION SYSTEMS. Health Care: Current Reviews , 04 (05). http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2375-4273.c1.025
Surveillance, A. (2018). Anthrax surveillance . Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov . Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310470/
The current state of bioterrorist attack surveillance and preparedness in the US. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199656/
Thomas, M., Atrubin, D., & Hamilton, J. (2014). Assessing Best Practices for Grouping and Analyzing Urgent Care Center (UCC) and Emergency Department (ED) Data Sources within Syndromic Surveillance Systems. Online Journal Of Public Health Informatics , 6 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v6i1.5043
