Skip to main content

Doing It

 Building better for current and future pandemics seems reasonable, and doable. 

Yet managing pandemics also seemed reasonable and doable during the decades of funded planning in the United States. Funding supported to thwart bioterrorism, by the way. 


So the main lesson learned from these first years of a fresh pandemic should incorporate a way to circumvent false assurances and reliance on planners. 


And how do we move on from planning? Doing. 


If the World Health Organization recommends building better and getting sustainable development back on track, do so. Don’t continue to plan, just do. And do it with LMIC partnership in their place and space. 


Let’s energize this doable move with COVID vaccine and therapeutics.


  1. When the vaccines, therapeutics and supplies are delivered to countries, particularly low and middle income (LMIC) countries, are they delivered to credentialed labor supply? How is the labor credentialing assured across borders? How is labor regulated in these countries and what is global health doing to support labor regulation infrastructure? 

  2. When the vaccines, therapeutic and supply costs are calculated, how much infrastructure funding is accompanied? How is follow up funding holding the LMIC delivery accountable? 

  3. When the vaccines, therapeutics and supplies are asked for, what guidelines and recommendations across borders are being followed? It appears that countries are delivering therapeutics without much structure to evidence based science, and it appears that countries are delivering therapeutics without much accountability to the care delivery. What is global health doing to tie their resource support to accountable care? 

  4. When the vaccines, therapeutics and supplies are delivered, how are LMIC accounting for proper storage, handling and administration? How is global health supporting these assurances? How are philanthropic partners building the storage and  facilities so that subsequent medical homes can be designed? 

  5. When the vaccines, therapeutics and supplies are delivered, how is global health assessing the secondary follow up from mass vaccination or mass dispensing sites? In essence, how is global health calculating necessary costs and then delivering necessary resources to support primary care and medical home models after initial mass public health delivery? 

  6. What opportunities has global health taken to coordinate donated staffing and expertise alongside the resource delivery? If industry partners are going to be in LMIC for COVID pandemic-related activity, how are global health and host countries taking advantage of cross-training and education attainment?

  7. How has rapid, fast-track epidemiology training been conducted in these areas, and how has epidemiological development been tracked for future health and./or pandemic response?  Has global health come to consensus on epidemiologist credentials, training, ratios per population or center/laboratory requirements for LMIC? Has this funding been estimated and asked for, alongside the resource roll-out for the current pandemic?



We needn’t await decades of emergency preparedness planning, nor universal healthcare planning. Instead of assuming a build out seems reasonable and doable one day, let’s just get it done, with country leadership in their place and in their space. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oxygen

Keeping it simple for oxygen coordination is best accomplished when we're welcomed in.  It’s good to support global leadership in medical oxygen supply management for underserved communities and countries in need.  It’s great to support efforts that strengthen individual country leadership toward national strategies on medical oxygen supply management.   Both require some tread into a country’s vulnerabilities on medical needs.  Let’s tread meaningfully and in a way that assures a welcome back.  Detail the coordinating agencies or government departments responsible for medical oxygen supply receipt. Meet with health administrators.  Detail a country’s current policies, compare with a global review and detail opportunities for policies on oxygen management. Is medical oxygen supply and/or maintenance an ongoing regulatory component within a country? What would it take to sharpen regulatory efforts? Is medical oxygen supply a component to ongoing emergen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vaccination

 Meet people where they are.  Immunization is a cornerstone of public health and vaccination is an investment for the individual.  The cornerstone is fractured when there is incongruence between medicine and public health.  The investment is fractured when there is a disconnect between the individual and the public. Repair the fractured cornerstone. Be professional with the professional credentials handed. In a functioning, interdependent system, we would rely on scientific expertise for research and development of a tool, we would rely on medical expertise and diagnosticians to assess appropriateness of this tool to the individual, and we would rely on public health experts to bring the tool to people - where they are. We do not have a functioning, interdependent system in a world of discourse and inconsistent application of scientific concepts. While we cannot control the external energy, we can control how we meet people where they are.  We should set expecta...
Post a Comment
Read more

Experts and Regulation

For all the global health coordination, and all the international research collaboration, there is no movement toward scope of practice, labor regulation, prescribing regulation or biotechnological responsibility standardization.  We should encourage measured progress toward accountability in medicine regulation, and we should do so with countries at the table.   What are the medical professions, credentials, approved education and scope of practice in healthcare, per country? What are the community healthcare worker (CHW) roles if allowed, per country? What would countries like to see adjusted or mirrored?  Which procedures are allowed for each healthcare profession? What are the rationales, inclusive of supply and demand and access issues?  What are the differences in approvals and guidelines for medicine safety, and for who can prescribe what? What is the healthcare political climate in various countries and how does this affect decision making? What analytic...
Post a Comment
Read more