This study has the general objective to seek for the action system at emergency rooms in university hospitals as private medical institutions to cope with the pandemic influenza becoming more likely to come in the future as well by analysis of novel i...
This study has the general objective to seek for the action system at emergency rooms in university hospitals as private medical institutions to cope with the pandemic influenza becoming more likely to come in the future as well by analysis of novel influenza A(H1N1)'s prevalent status which broke out all over the world in 2009-2010 and by examination of the cases of national action measures in our country and action process at emergency rooms in university hospitals. For this, it grasps WHO' s action guidelines and our government's action process at one emergency room in K university hospital located in Seoul which had been designated as a community sentinel hospital in Oct. 2009 and after that, looks for the way to establish action system at emergency rooms in university hospitals in understanding of human and facility resources and action measures such as support to medical treatment process at one emergency room in K university hospital in Seoul participated in the medical treatment of novel influenza A(H1N1).
The results from this study are as bellows:
For the action process of the CDC in the States, America, while it is a country where novel influenza A(H1N1) broke out in the initial stages, proper actions were taken such as report of the pandemic situation, information sharing with other institutions, immediate announcement of action guidelines, research and distribution of antiviral medicines and vaccines, increase of the reserve in preparation for a state of national emergency, press briefing to the public and so on, keeping pace with WHO.
For the action process in our country based on the key role by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KCDC), its first focus was brought to implementation of 'containment policy' of the spread based on the guidelines and announcements from WHO and CDC as well as rigid enforcement of quarantine, epidemiological investigation and home or hospitalization confinement of suspected or confirmed patients, etc. At this time, it was successful in political aspect but insufficient in PR to the public, medical or educational fields. Since July when it broke out in the local society with no evidence of inflow to the nation, it was converted to 'mitigation policy' of the damage and the key role of treatment was gradually transferred to private medical institutions as the guidelines were revised quickly, the objects of antiviral medicines' administration were expanded, the vaccine was injected, community sentinel hospitals were designated and so on. At this time, mutual cooperation between public medical institutions based on the key role of KCDC and private medical institutions was not made well and medical teams had to treat rushing patients with no specific preparations because of no proper supports so that it produced problems in the treatment as well as people's anxiety.
For the action process by K university hospital, even though they followed up guidelines given by KCDC on cue from the first states and revised and announced the guidelines, there were conceptual parts such as they concentrated their works on the emergency room with no practical preparations for proper manpower or facilities, treatment process and also there was no proper education to the medical team. As the patients with novel influenza A(H1N1) increased, they showed action system to maintain proper medical process by mobilization of many manpower and facilities since Nov. but their manpower placement, supports of facilities and medical process were not made properly before the rapid increase of patients. There was no consideration on the issue of isolated moving lines to separate consulting room from emergency room and since they combined the works at emergency room with no additional placement of manpower at night (16:30-09.00 the next day) and on days off, public holidays when many patients rushed in but placement of manpower in the daytime(09:00-16:30) only to the waiting room for guardians in the emergency room equipped with no sound pressure facility, it caused danger of infection in the hospital, medical overload in emergency room, manpower exhaustion in emergency room and complaints from the patients with novel influenza A(H1N1) under treatment. In consideration of that there are many patients in emergency room in order of Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday by days of the week and also that emergency rooms are operating in the rush hour of around 50% patients for eight hours from 16:00 to 24:00, their operation by the time of manpower supply was the most ineffective.
It can be expected that there would be overload of medical administrative works in the field private medical institutions including university hospitals when all disasters including pandemic influenza break out and emergency rooms as the place first visited by patients are always exposed to dangers of the exhaustion of medical and human resources caused by mass inflow of patients as well as of the secondary infection in hospitals. Analyzing problems in occurring of all disasters, training against disasters were not made properly due to low budget and hospitals' cursory establishment of disaster countermeasures so that they would not be able to provide effective emergency treatment for patients rushed as the same time and, that is, emergency rooms must be established and trained with the proper plans of manpower, equipments and facilities, treatment process by which the patients exposed to pandemic influenza can be treated.