County Urges Medical Professionals to Enroll
Imagine an envelope containing anthrax is received at a main San Diego County post office. Hundreds of people are potentially exposed. A high-priority alert is issued from the Emergency Medical Alert Network (EMAN) of San Diego County. The alert provides medical professionals throughout the county with information about who may have been exposed, clinical signs and symptoms, specimen collection and testing, and various treatment options for those exposed who may or may not yet be symptomatic.
As a participant in EMAN, you are one of the first healthcare providers in the county to receive official information and guidance from the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency. EMAN first alerts you via email, phone, and alpha-pager, and then directs you to the secure EMAN Web portal for additional information and recommendations.
As a result of the EMAN alert, you and your staff are better prepared to screen, triage, and treat the potentially numerous patients (including “worried well”) that begin presenting at your healthcare facility. EMAN updates you on a regular basis as recommendations change and the situation unfolds.
Purchased with federal bioterrorism funds, EMAN’s goal is to facilitate early detection of and rapid response to local communicable disease outbreaks, clusters, and other unusual disease activity, including acts of bioterrorism. San Diego County healthcare providers are encouraged to complete the EMAN online registration form at www.emansandiego.com. Once applications are screened and approved, new EMAN participants are assigned a username and a password of their choosing.
EMAN alerts are issued 1–3 times per month and are categorized as high, medium, or low in priority. Most EMAN alerts are sent via email and relate to unusual disease occurrence and requests for enhanced public health surveillance. Medium-priority alerts are issued to announce important disease occurrence that may require prompt but not immediate action. High-priority alerts are issued only during public health emergencies.
In addition to the “real-time” alerting feature, EMAN includes a secure Web portal containing current and archived EMAN alerts, an automated “search” function, communicable disease and bioterrorism information, and a directory providing business contact information for EMAN participants. Questions about EMAN should be directed to Bruce Even at (619) 285-6588.