InterGovWorld.com's Spotlight series profiles Executives, decision-makers and their initiatives across all levels of Canadian government.
(PHAC Photo / Alain Desroches)
In Part 1 InterGovWorld spoke with Dr. Arlene King about her role as the Director General of the Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat as well as lessons learned from SARS.
In Part 2, King discusses the challenges the agency faces with respect to pandemic flu preparedness, and how a Canada-wide EHR could help tackle potential outbreaks.
Q) Essentially the work you're doing now at the agency is a direct result of lessons learned from SARS?
A) That's right. We know that we have to be prepared for any emerging infectious disease and the greatest concerns we're aware of right now relate to the emergence of a new pandemic strain. Pandemic flu is another emerging infectious disease, it's what I would call the mother of all emerging infectious diseases because it spreads very easily among the population and will result in a lot of illness and death in Canada. Preparing for pandemic flu will undoubtedly help us prepare for any new emerging infectious disease that should emerge like SARS.
Q) As you said, your secretariat is quite busy. What do you feel is your biggest challenge?
A) There are a good number of challenges. One is that there's been a paradigm change with respect to pandemic influenza preparedness over the last year. That change has been from one of health sector preparedness to basically societal preparedness for a pandemic. This means that when we have a pandemic it's not just going to be a health emergency it's also going to be an emergency that's going to involve most sectors of society.
Preparing for the worst
We have to make sure that our critical infrastructure and the private sector is adequately prepared and that we're involving other organizations that can assist with not only preparedness but also response. There are a number of non-governmental organizations that have a significant role to play so I would say that one of the biggest challenges right now is just trying to get a handle on and move forward with cross-sectoral preparedness. That's not an easy task because there's a very different paradigm within the emergency worlds and the health worlds. Health people are not used to being involved in an overall emergency management framework and emergency management response. We have to bridge all those different paradigms and ways of thinking. We have to ensure that we all work together to efficiently use all of the resources available.
Covering all the bases
That's why in November of 2005 a Deputy Minister committee to oversee preparedness for Avian and pandemic influenza was established within the federal government. The creation was to ensure that the federal government is in fact prepared for pandemic or avian flu if and when it arrives in Canada. A new overall coordination integration secretariat is being established within public safety to make sure that we have a good interface between my health sector secretariat and the government-wide secretariat. One of our major challenges right now is just making sure that we're prepared as a society for the possibility of any emerging infectious diseases.
Q) How has technology changed in the work you're doing? For example, there have been talks about having a national EHR and integrated information would help tackle these outbreaks/pandemics if and when they arise. Is that something your secretariat is looking at?
A) Absolutely. One of the major issues that we've been working on for some time which isn't specifically related to pandemic flu, but related to public health in general is the use of a public health information system and ensuring there are appropriate public health information systems throughout the country. One of the priorities for public health information system development, under the auspices of Canada Health Infoway, has been to make sure we have a communicable disease system in place.
Now the components of that system are able to capture disease related information and surveillance information on people who are sick. The other key element is to ensure that we've got immunization registries in place so that people know and can easily access, and their health providers can easily access information on what vaccines people have received.
During a pandemic, when we believe that we're going to have to provide two doses of pandemic vaccine to every Canadian, an immunization registry would be of tremendous value in terms of record keeping.
So there are two areas, one is surveillance and both individual cases of disease and outbreak, recording outbreak information. Finally, ensuring there are immunization registries available or to move towards an immunization registry. I think those are a couple of key areas that can assist us during a pandemic.
Click here to see Part 1 of the profile of Dr. Arlene King.
Click here to access an archive of all past InterGovWorld.com spotlights.
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