Search Results (6)

The occurrence of major public health crises, like the COVID-19 epidemic, present significant challenges to healthcare systems and the management of emergency medical resources worldwide. This study, by examining the practices of emergency medical resource management in select countries during the COVID-19 epidemic, and reviewing the relevant literature, finds that emergency hierarchical diagnosis and treatment systems (EHDTSs) play a crucial role in managing emergency resources effectively. To address key issues of emergency resource management in EHDTSs, we examine the features of EHDTSs and develop a research framework for emergency resource management in EHDTSs, especially focusing on the management of emergency medical personnel and medical supplies during evolving epidemics. The research framework identifies key issues of emergency medical resource management in EHDTSs, including the sharing and scheduling of emergency medical supplies, the establishment and sharing of emergency medical supply warehouses, and the integrated dispatch of emergency medical personnel. The proposed framework not only offers insights for future research but also can facilitate better emergency medical resource management in EHDTSs during major public health emergencies. Full article

Veterinary medications are necessary for both contemporary animal husbandry and food production, but their residues can linger in foods obtained from animals and pose a dangerous human risk. In this review, we aim to highlight the sources, occurrence, human exposure pathways, and human health effects of drug residues in food-animal products. Following the usage of veterinary medications, pharmacologically active compounds known as drug residues can be found in food, the environment, or animals. They can cause major health concerns to people, including antibiotic resistance development, the development of cancer, teratogenic effects, hypersensitivity, and disruption of normal intestinal flora. Drug residues in animal products can originate from variety of sources, including water or food contamination, extra-label drug use, and ignoring drug withdrawal periods. This review also examines how humans can be exposed to drug residues through drinking water, food, air, and dust, and discusses various analytical techniques for identifying these residues in food. Furthermore, we suggest some potential solutions to prevent or reduce drug residues in animal products and human exposure pathways, such as implementing withdrawal periods, monitoring programs, education campaigns, and new technologies that are crucial for safeguarding public health. This review underscores the urgency of addressing veterinary drug residues as a significant and emerging public health threat, calling for collaborative efforts from researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders to develop sustainable solutions that ensure the safety of the global food supply chain. Full article

The novel coronavirus pandemic is a major global public health emergency, and has presented new challenges and requirements for the timely response and operational stability of emergency logistics that were required to address the major public health events outbreak in China. Based on the problems of insufficient timeliness and high total system cost of emergency logistics distribution in major epidemic situations, this paper takes the minimum vehicle distribution travel cost, time cost, early/late punishment cost, and fixed cost of the vehicle as the target, the soft time window for receiving goods at each demand point, the rated load of the vehicle, the volume, maximum travel of the vehicle in a single delivery as constraints, and an emergency logistics vehicle routing problem optimization model for major epidemics was constructed. The convergence speed improvement strategy, particle search improvement strategy, and elite retention improvement strategy were introduced to improve the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for it to be suitable for solving global optimization problems. The simulation results prove that the improved PSO algorithm required to solve the emergency medical supplies logistics vehicle routing problem for the major emergency can reach optimal results. Compared with the basic PSO algorithm, the total cost was reduced by 20.09%. Full article

At the early stage of a major public health emergency outbreak, there exists an imbalance between supply and demand in the distribution of emergency supplies. To improve the efficiency of emergency medical service equipment and relieve the treatment pressure of each medical treatment point, one of the most important factors is the emergency medical equipment logistics distribution. Based on the actual data of medical equipment demand during the epidemic and the characteristics of emergencies, this study proposed an evaluation index system for emergency medical equipment demand point urgency, based on the number of patients, the number of available inpatient beds, and other influencing factors as the index. An urban emergency medical equipment distribution model considering the urgency of demand, the distribution time window, and vehicle load was constructed with the constraints. Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, at the beginning of the outbreak was selected as a validation example, and the Criteria Importance Though Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method and the genetic algorithm were used to simulate and validate the model with and without considering the demand urgency. The results show that under the public health emergencies, the distribution path designed to respond to different levels of urgency demand for medical equipment is the most efficient path and reduces the total distribution cost by 5%. Full article

COVID-19 is recognized as an infectious disease generated by serious acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. COVID-19 has rapidly spread all over the world within a short time period. Due to the coronavirus pandemic transmitting quickly worldwide, the impact on global healthcare systems and healthcare supply chain management has been profound. The COVID-19 outbreak has seriously influenced the routine and daily operations of healthcare facilities and the entire healthcare supply chain management and has brough about a public health crisis. As making sure the availability of healthcare facilities during COVID-19 is crucial, the debate on how to take resilience actions for sustaining healthcare supply chain management has gained new momentum. Apart from the logistics of handling human remains in some countries, supplies within the communities are urgently needed for emergency response. This study focuses on a comprehensive evaluation of the current practices of healthcare supply chain management in Hong Kong and the United States under COVID-19 settings. A wide range of different aspects associated with healthcare supply chain operations are considered, including the best practices for using respirators, transport of life-saving medical supplies, contingency healthcare strategies, blood distribution, and best practices for using disinfectants, as well as human remains handling and logistics. The outcomes of the conducted research identify the existing healthcare supply chain trends in two major Eastern and Western regions of the world, Hong Kong and the United States, and determine the key challenges and propose some strategies that can improve the effectiveness of healthcare supply chain management under COVID-19 settings. The study highlights how to build resilient healthcare supply chain management preparedness for future emergencies. Full article

Accurate and effective government communication is essential for public health emergencies. To optimize the effectiveness of government crisis communication, this paper puts forward an analytical perspective of supply–demand matching based on the interaction between the government and the public. We investigate the stage characteristics and the topic evolutions of both government information supply and public information demand through combined statistical analysis, text mining, text coding and cluster analysis, using empirical data from the National Health Commission’s WeChat in China. A quantitative measure reflecting the public demand for government information supply is proposed. Result indicates that the government has provided a large amount of high-intensity epidemic-related information, with six major topics being the medical team, government actions, scientific protection knowledge, epidemic situation, high-level deployment and global cooperation. The public’s greatest information needs present different characteristics at different stages, with “scientific protection knowledge”, “government actions” and “medical teams” being the most needed in the outbreak stage, the control stage and the stable stage, respectively. The subject of oversupply is “medical team”, and the subject of short supply is “epidemic dynamics” and “science knowledge”. This paper provides important theoretical and practical value for improving the effectiveness of government communication in public health crises. Full article