How to Prevent the Next Ebola

THE ATLANTIC  by Olga Khazan                 Mar 18 2015 

(Scroll down for additional links

Brian D'Cruz, a Virginia emergency-room doctor, spent the winter volunteering in a Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment center in Conakry, Guinea. One of the myriad obstacles he encountered was that the yellow hazmat suits Ebola doctors wear take 45 minutes to don, yet are so stifling that a doctor can only spend an hour in one before risking dehydration. Having to frequently drop everything to pull off the suits made it even more difficult to stretch their already meager staff, D'Cruz told me in an interview at the Washington Health Forum this morning.

In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine today, Bill Gates, who now focuses his philanthropy, the Gates Foundation, on global health, said he noticed the issue with the suits as early as September. "It was apparent that health workers in protective suits would get so hot that it was difficult for them to care for their patients," Gates wrote. "I asked a group of people who work for me on technology for keeping vaccines cold to refocus on keeping the medical workers cool."

Read complete article

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/bill-gates-speaks-out-on-ebola/388120/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1502918

-0-
THE ATLANTIC Washington Health Forum                                     March 18, 2015

The Atlantic convened a group of physicians, technologists, researchers, business leaders, advocates, legislators, health policy thought leaders and practitioners to examine the trends in health care today, with an eye to understanding how individual patient and physician experiences are evolving as health practices and policies change.

In the past year, health issues dominated the news, demonstrating the dynamism—and dysfunction—of the health sector. Ebola spread abroad and measles spread at home, the Ice Bucket Challenge raised awareness and money in unprecedented amounts, wearables became more common than wrist watches and debates over Obamacare continued as enrollments rose and new leadership arrived on Capitol Hill.

The Atlantic’s seventh annual Health Forum took a close look at these critical new developments in an attempt to understand how big shifts shape individual experiences.

See:

http://www.theatlantic.com/live/events/atlantic-health-forum/2015/