TAKING ACTION

To be fair, there has been some action on the part of the government. The CDC has sent a team to evaluate the systems in place at Texas Presbyterian to ensure the proper protocols are in place for the treatment of those affected as well as future cases. Among team members deployed to the hospital are experts in infection control, Ebola virus control and infectious diseases, laboratory science, personal protective equipment, hospital epidemiology, and workplace safety–and all members of the team have had specific experience with Ebola management, working with organizations including Doctors Without Borders.

Their investigation, which is pertinent to hospitals yet to have Ebola cases come in, has a number of focuses, including to evaluate how personal protective equipment (PPE) is being used and how it is being put on and taken off; what medical procedures were done on Mr. Duncan that may have exposed the health‑care worker; the decontamination processes for workers leaving the isolation unit; ensuring oversight and monitoring of all infection control practices, particularly putting on and taking off PPE, at each shift in each location where this occurs should be implemented; and what enhanced training and/or changes in protocol may be needed.

From their evaluation of how things had been handled at Texas Presbyterian, by pinpointing what went wrong and how to correct it, the hope is that the team will be able to establish better, more specific guidelines for other hospitals to follow should an outbreak occur in other facilities.