Going mobile: how mobile personal health records can improve health care during emergencies.

Personal health records (PHRs), in contrast to electronic health records (EHRs) or electronic medical records (EMRs), are health records in which data are accessible to patients and not just providers. In recent years, many systems have enabled PHRs to be available in a mobile format. Mobile PHRs (mPHRs) allow patients to access health information via the Internet or telecommunication devices, such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and tablet computers.

Absorbing citywide patient surge during Hurricane Sandy: a case study in accommodating multiple hospital evacuations.

Study Objective: Hospital evacuations have myriad effects on all elements of the health care system. We seek to (1) examine the effect of patient surge on hospitals that received patients from evacuating hospitals in New York City during Hurricane Sandy; (2) describe operational challenges those hospitals faced pre- and poststorm; and (3) examine the coordination efforts to distribute patients to receiving hospitals.

Methods: We used a qualitative, interview-based method to identify medical surge strategies used at hospitals receiving patients from evacuated health care facilities during and after Hurricane Sandy.

Foreign medical teams: what role can they play in response to a catastrophic disaster in the US?

Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that a catastrophic event in the continental United States (US) can overwhelm domestic medical response capabilities. The recent focus on response planning for a catastrophic earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone and the detonation of an improvised nuclear device also underscore the need for improved plans. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the potential role of foreign medical teams (FMTs) in providing medical response to a catastrophic event in the US.

Return of epidemic dengue in the United States: implications for the public health practitioner.

Conditions that facilitate sustained dengue transmission exist in the United States, and outbreaks have occurred during the past decade in Texas, Hawaii, and Florida. More outbreaks can also be expected in years to come. To combat dengue, medical and public health practitioners in areas with mosquito vectors that are competent to transmit the virus must be aware of the threat of reemergent dengue, and the need for early reporting and control to reduce the impact of dengue outbreaks.

Lessons learned during dengue outbreaks in the United States, 2001-2011.

Since 2001, three autochthonous dengue fever outbreaks have occurred in the United States: in Hawaii (2001); Brownsville, Texas (2005); and southern Florida (2009-2011). We sought to characterize and describe the response to these outbreaks from the perspectives of public health and vector control officials. By conducting a medical literature review through PubMed and news media searches through Google, we identified persons involved in managing each outbreak; 26 persons then participated in qualitative, semistructured interviews.

Stigma, health disparities, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic: how to protect Latino farmworkers in future health emergencies.

At the outset of the 2009 H1N1 influenza ("swine flu") pandemic, Mexican nationals and Mexican commodities were shunned globally, and, in the United States, some media personalities characterized Mexican immigrants as disease vectors who were a danger to the country. We investigated instances in the U.S.

Expanding practitioner scopes of practice during public health emergencies: experiences from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccination efforts.

In a public health emergency involving significant surges in patients and shortages of medical staff, supplies, and space, temporarily expanding scopes of practice of certain healthcare practitioners may help to address heightened population health needs. Scopes of practice, which are defined by state practice acts, set forth the range of services that licensed practitioners are authorized to perform. The U.

The dengue threat to the United States.

Over the past 3 decades, dengue has spread rapidly and has emerged as one of the world's most common mosquitoborne viral diseases. Although often found in tropical and semitropical areas, dengue is capable of being transmitted in temperate climates as well. Dengue is currently endemic to Mexico, most other Latin American countries, and parts of the Caribbean, and it has the potential to become reestablished as an endemic disease in the United States.

Environmental decontamination following a large-scale bioterrorism attack: federal progress and remaining gaps.

The process of environmental decontamination is a key step in a successful response to a large-scale attack involving a biological agent. Costs for the decontamination response following the 2001 anthrax attacks were estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and some facilities could not be reopened for more than 2 years. However, a large-scale biological attack would likely result in an even greater amount of contamination, more areas that need to be cleaned and made safe, and a much greater cost to the American public.