Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR)

See the following -

Using Open Technology To Build a Biodefense Against the Coronavirus

As the number of US cases of the coronavirus rises, how will healthcare professionals be able to tell the difference between which panicked patients with similar symptoms has what? Even if the patient hasn't traveled to Wuhan or China recently, what if they sat at a Starbucks with someone who did? With the incubation time-lag before symptoms appear, who would even know? The challenge of monitoring 330 million people for infectious disease outbreaks is daunting. Take the flu as an example. During the last flu season which, as already discussed, was not as complex as this year's season, approximately 35.5 million Americans had flu symptoms, 16.5 million received medical care, 490,600 were hospitalized and 34,200 died.

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Using the Latest Advances in Data Science to Fight Infectious Diseases

One of the most dramatic shifts in recent years that is empowering epidemiologists to be more effective at their jobs is occurring due to improvements in data technologies. In the past, the old "relational" data model dictated that data had to be highly structured, and as a result treated in distinct silos. This made it difficult, if not impossible, to analyze data from multiple sources to find correlations. Epidemiologists would spend many minutes or even hours on each query they ran to get results back, which is unacceptable when you need to test dozens of hypotheses to try to understand and contain a fast-moving outbreak. (Imagine how you would feel if each one of your Google searches took 45 minutes to return!) By contrast, using newer technologies, the same queries on the same hardware can run in seconds. Read More »

VA's Hurricane Relief Efforts Extend Beyond Veterans

Johnathon Clinkscales | American Legion | October 5, 2017

The American Legion met with VA leadership on Sept. 29 to learn what humanitarian aid VA is, and has been, providing to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida and Texas..."There are 60 civilian hospitals in Puerto Rico, many of which are still inoperative, don't have power or have serious damage. There's only one hospital that is like the beacon in Puerto Rico and that is the VA medical center - seeing people, taking care of everybody we can and feeding everybody we can."..."We did a lot of preparing and started sending stuff down there before the hurricane. Now we're using these resources to take care of non-veterans and civilians until the hospitals - that are either damaged, incapable of operating or we don't know the condition of - come back into the system and then we'll transfer them. It is certainly necessary for a humanitarian effort like this," Loren said...

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TEDxAUCMed - Weathering the Storm

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
October 17, 2019 (All day)

American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine presents TEDxAUCMed, our inaugural TEDx conference. TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. The theme of this year's event is "Weathering the Storm," and we are excited to present a diverse group of speakers whose insight and experiences will energize us to reflect on our world, our communities, and our own lives. The conference will be held in Lecture Hall 2. We are excited to bring the TEDx experience to AUC and the island of Sint Maarten and look forward to sharing in this experience with you.

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2020 International Conference on Disaster Medicine and Hurricane Resiliency

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
March 26, 2020 (All day) - March 29, 2020 (All day)

The 2nd Annual CCDM International Conference on Disaster Medicine and Hurricane Resiliency will gather professionals and experts from around the world to share insights and expertise on preparing for and managing disasters, building disaster management capacity, and educating and training in the health professions. We are once again excited to collaborate on this event with Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and our regional partners in Sint Maarten and the Caribbean.

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