Preventing Absenteeism and Promoting Resilience Among Health Care Workers In Biological Emergencies

Abstract

Executive SummarySince the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, homeland security and emergency response communities have increasingly focused on planning for disaster medical surge capacity-the capacity of the health care system to respond to a large influx of patients after a disaster. The ability to ensure adequate numbers of medical staff represents a crucial part of the medical response to any disaster. However, healthcare worker absenteeism during disasters, especially in the event of an attack of biological terrorism or an epidemic, such as pandemic influenza, is a serious concern.Though a significant rate of absenteeism is often included as a baseline assumption in emergency planning, published reports on strategies to minimize absenteeism are comparatively few. This report documents interviews with managers and emergency response planners at hospitals and public health agencies and reviews existing survey data on healthcare worker absenteeism and studies of disasters to glean lessons about the needs of healthcare workers during those disasters. Based on this research, expected rates of absenteeism and individual determinants of absenteeism are presented along with recommendations of steps that hospitals, emergency medical services organizations, public health organizations, and government agencies can take to meet the needs of healthcare workers and minimize absenteeism during a biological event.v AcknowledgmentsThis work was conducted in support of the Interagency Biological Restoration Demonstration, a collaborative regional program jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense-Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designed to develop policies, methods, plans, and applied technologies to restore large urban areas, DoD installations, and critical infrastructure following the release of a biological event.

Ecological Disasters and Mental Health: Causes, Consequences, and Interventions

“…It is important for healthcare facilities to reduce barriers for healthcare personnel reporting to work and ensure adequate resourcing during times of increased care demand. An extensive qualitative review of healthcare organizations conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy revealed that measures most likely to reduce fear-based absenteeism included effective early and ongoing communication by hospital leadership, ensuring adequacy of personal protective equipment, and maintaining adequate staffing to avoid overburdening healthcare personnel (42).…”

Health Services Vulnerability During the Ebola Outbreak: A Qualitative Report

“…Campbell et al Miller and WHO reports, all emphasized the importance of complying with the control and prevention guidelines [19,20]. Other cases of personnel vulnerability include "problems due to traffic and transfer and patient triage in the health center".…”

“…"lack of isolation" and "environmental control". Multiple studies also mentioned availability of specific places such as isolated or quarantined parts to prevent the spread of disease and the effects of healthy people as one of the resilience aspects of self-regulation [19][20][21]. In addition, it seems that in this case, lack of risk perception at different levels in the health system and the weakness of the infrastructure caused lack of having a program for creating readiness and capacity building.…”

“…In addition, fatigue increases the chance of error [22]. Lesperance also mentioned it as one of the factors of the resilience of the health team, and indicated that wearing PPE provides relaxed and secure feelings in the personnel, especially during epidemics [20].…”

Knowledge, Attitude and Associated Factors of Monkeypox Infection Among Healthcare Workers in Injibara General Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

“…27,37 However, other studies reported negative attitudes, such as fear, stigmatization, [48][49][50] and refusal to care for mpox patients. 51 Satisfactory attitude towards mpox was observed in less than a third (30.7%) of Lebanon healthcare workers. 40 Additionally, Nepalese healthcare workers still have a negative attitude regarding its control measures.…”