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CDC TAKES NEW STEPS TO IMPROVE TRAINING FOR HOSPITAL WORKERS

NEW YORK TIMES                   Oct. 13, 2014
By Pam Belluck

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking new steps to help hospital workers protect themselves, providing more training and urging hospitals to run drills to practice dealing with potential Ebola patients.

In response to the news that a health care worker in Dallas had contracted Ebola, a spokeswoman said the agency would also issue more specific instructions and explanations for putting on and removing protective equipment and would urge nurses and doctors to enlist a co-worker or “buddy” to watch them do so....

The agency will conduct a nationwide training conference call for health care workers on Tuesday. And in New York City on Oct. 21, it will co-sponsor training for 5,000 people, including nurses, emergency technicians and environmental health workers, that will be streamed live to hospitals across the country.

The agency will also urge hospitals to conduct full-scale drills in which people pretending to be Ebola patients enter the hospital, forcing unsuspecting staff members to run through the process of diagnosis, isolation and potential treatment. Several hospitals have conducted such drills, and some have found holes in their systems...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/us/cdc-will-offer-more-ebola-training-to-health-care-workers.html?_r=0

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CDC ISSUES DETAILED HOSPITAL CHECK LIST FOR EBOLA PREPAREDNESS

 Link to the guidlines

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/index.html

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NURSES UNON SAYS MOST HOSPITALS ARE NOT PREPARED FOR EBOLA

WASHINGTON POST              oCT. 12, 2014
By DeNeen L. Brown

National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country, said that more than 80 percent of nurses the union surveyed report they have not been given adequate training on Ebola.

Thirty-six percent say their hospitals do not have sufficient supplies — including face shields and fluid-resistant gowns — to care for an Ebola patient, according the report by National Nurses United, which surveyed more than 1,900 nurses in more than 750 facilities in 46 states.

 Seventy-six percent of nurses surveyed report their hospitals have not issued adequate policies on how to deal with patients who might be infected with Ebola.

 “We are seeing that hospitals are not prepared,” said Bonnie Castillo, director of Registered Nurse Response Network, which is part of National Nurses United. “They are not doing active drilling and education they need to be doing.”

Castillo said most of the nurses surveyed reported they have received only single pages of information about Ebola that refers them to a Web site.  “That is woefully insufficient,” Castillo said. “We have to continue to sound the alarm. There is the potential for many more Dallases if hospitals are not mandated and do not commit to more vigorous standards. We see potential gaping holes for this to spread.”

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/10/12/national-nurses-united-says-most-hospitals-are-not-prepared-for-ebola/

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EBOLA INFECTION IN DALLAS NURSE UNDERSCORES CRITICAL NEED FOR PROPER TRAINING

SCIENCE  INSIDER                         Oct. 12 2014

By John Cohen

...Tom Frieden, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Sunday

“There’s a need to enhance the training and protocol to make sure the protocols are followed,”   and although all U.S. hospitals need to know how to diagnose Ebola infection, it may be safer to provide care at designated facilities that have received more extensive training, he said. “That’s something we'll absolutely be looking at.”

...the extreme precautions needed to treat Ebola are a new experience for most health care workers, and they need to practice extensively to learn the proper procedures.  This video, provided by CDC, gives an idea of how volunteers scheduled to help fight Ebola in West Africa learn the cumbersome and clumsy process of donning and doffing the suits. The footage is from one of the first of a series of safety training sessions that CDC is holding at an old military base in Anniston, Alabama.  Here’s the syllabus for the course and other details about it.

Doctors Without Borders, which has led the clinical response to the current Ebola epidemic, similarly conducts training courses for health care workers. This video shows a recent course held in Brussels, Belgium.

See full story and links

http://news.sciencemag.org/2014/10/ebola-infection-dallas-nurse-underscores-critical-need-proper-training

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LIBERIA: DESCRIPTION OF TRAINING EFFORTS TO STAFF NEW FACILITIES

 NPR                                           Oct. 13, 2014

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/13/355671751/on-front-lines-against-ebola-training-a-matter-of-life-or-death