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Academic Institutions’ Critical Guidelines for Health Care Workers Who Deploy to West Africa for the Ebola Response and Future Crises*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

Hilarie Cranmer ,
Miriam Aschkenasy ,
Ryan Wildes ,
Stephanie Kayden Open the ORCID record for Stephanie Kayden [Opens in a new window] ,
David Bangsberg ,
Michelle Niescierenko ,
Katie Kemen ,
Kai-Hsun Hsiao ,
Michael VanRooyen  and
Frederick M. Burkle Jr
...Show all authors
Hilarie Cranmer*
Affiliation:
Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Miriam Aschkenasy
Affiliation:
Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Ryan Wildes
Affiliation:
International Risk Management, Partners Healthcare Risk and Insurance Services, Boston, Massachusetts
Stephanie Kayden
Affiliation:
Division of International Emergency Medicine and Humanitarian Programs, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
David Bangsberg
Affiliation:
Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
Michelle Niescierenko
Affiliation:
Global Health Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Katie Kemen
Affiliation:
Emergency Preparedness, Partners HealthCare, Boston, Massachusetts
Kai-Hsun Hsiao
Affiliation:
Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Michael VanRooyen
Affiliation:
Humanitarian Academy at Harvard, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Frederick M. Burkle Jr
Affiliation:
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC
Paul D. Biddinger
Affiliation:
Partners HealthCare and Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Hilarie Cranmer, MD, MPH, Director of Global Disaster Response, Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, 100 Cambridge St, 15th Floor, Boston, MA 02114 (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Abstract

The unprecedented Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa, with its first cases documented in March 2014, has claimed the lives of thousands of people, and it has devastated the health care infrastructure and workforce in affected countries. Throughout this outbreak, there has been a critical lack of health care workers (HCW), including physicians, nurses, and other essential non-clinical staff, who have been needed, in most of the affected countries, to support the medical response to EVD, to attend to the health care needs of the population overall, and to be trained effectively in infection protection and control. This lack of sufficient and qualified HCW is due in large part to three factors: 1) limited HCW staff prior to the outbreak, 2) disproportionate illness and death among HCWs caused by EVD directly, and 3) valid concerns about personal safety among international HCWs who are considering responding to the affected areas. These guidelines are meant to inform institutions who deploy professional HCWs. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:586–590)

Keywords

disaster medicineemergency preparednessdisease outbreaksdecision makingorganizationalrelief work
Type
Responder Tools
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 9 , Issue 5 , October 2015 , pp. 586 - 590
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2015 

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Footnotes

*

This article originally appeared in Harvard Health Policy Review: Cranmer HH et al. Academic Institutions' Critical Guidelines for Health Care Workers who Deploy to West Africa for the Ebola Response and Future Crises. Harvard Health Policy Review. 2015;14(2):22-24. The article is reprinted here with permission.

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