Managing Health Threats and Responses

This chapter includes information that federal and municipal public health agencies can use to track disease outbreaks, share information internally and with the public, and manage local and global responses. This chapter describes the procedures that assist in tracking disease outbreaks and medication availability, developing solutions for frequently asked questions (FAQs), and managing responses. It includes the following topics:

Scenarios for Health Threat Management

This topic describes how health threat management might be used. You might use health threat management differently, depending on your business model. This topic includes the following scenarios:

Managing Disease Records

An epidemiologist with a Disease Control Agency (DCA) receives reports from doctors of an outbreak of monkeypox in humans in the southwestern states. Compiling information from reports and from research that lab colleagues complete, she creates a new disease record that includes an overview of the disease, a diagnosis, the symptoms, and public health response procedures. In the disease record, she identifies three of her colleagues, who specialize in animal-transmitted diseases, as disease experts.

The epidemiologist begins tracking the spread of the disease, and creates case records for each of the doctors who contacted her about a disease outbreak. She also attaches several recent news articles about the disease to the disease record.

The epidemiologist creates several documents for frequently asked questions (FAQs) for publication to provide accurate information to the public about the disease. After finishing the content of the FAQs, she publishes the FAQs on the DCA Web site.

Several weeks later, a biomedical company announces that it recently developed a human vaccine for monkeypox. The epidemiologist creates a medication record for the monkeypox vaccine and enters the details that the company provides. She associates the vaccine with the monkeypox disease record.

The epidemiologist arranges for a shipment of 1,000 units of the vaccine from the biomedical company to the DCA warehouse, and creates an inventory transaction record to document the delivery of the vaccine. After the vaccine arrives, the epidemiologist initiates another inventory transaction to transfer 250 units of the monkeypox vaccine to an affected state’s Health Department.

Managing a Disease Knowledge Base

At a DCA call center, an agent receives a call about monkeypox from a physician in Colorado. The agent creates a incident record to record the information that the physician reports, and includes a description of the patient’s symptoms and contact information for the physician’s office. The agent then searches the knowledge base for FAQs and a document to send the physician.

After reviewing the information with the physician, the agent discovers a question that the DCA’s current documentation does not address and opens a service request. The agent offers to call the physician back, and escalates the new question to a manager.

The manager contacts the epidemiologist to research the question. The epidemiologist updates the FAQ with the new information, and releases the new information to the manager at the call center. This manager posts the new FAQ information, and alerts the agent about the new information. The agent calls the primary contact at the doctor’s office, delivers the new information, and closes the request.

Process of Managing Public Health Cases

This process consists of tasks that users often perform when managing public health information and cases. Your agency might follow a different process according to its business requirements.

To manage public health cases, users perform the following tasks:

Creating Disease Records

Public health professionals create disease records with related informational files. For more information, see Adding Details to Disease Records.

They can associate a disease record with the following information:

Case records detailing individual or group outbreaks
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the disease that they might publish and use internally
Medications, with dosage information
Service requests
Training courses about disease management and epidemiology
Attachments, such as digital X-ray files, photographs of symptoms, and microscopic renderings

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To create a disease record

Navigate to the Diseases screen, then the Disease List view.

Create a new record, and complete the fields as appropriate.

The following table describes some of the fields.

Field	Description
Name	Type the name of the disease.
Category	Select the category for the disease. Values include Biological - A, Biological - B, Biological - C, Chemical - Blister/Vesicants, Chemical - Blood, and Chemical - Choking/Lung.
Status	Displays a worldwide status of Active for the disease. Values include Active, Current Outbreak, Eliminated, and Rare.
Overview	Type a high-level abstract of the disease.
Diagnosis	Type the methods, signs, and symptoms that identify a disease.
Surveillance	Select this check box to track the disease. The agency must define a workflow that specifies what happens when users create cases for disease records flagged for surveillance. The workflow can result in raising the priority of the case and sending notification. For more information about workflows, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide
Expert	Displays the ID of the user who creates the disease record. You can assign additional in-house experts to the disease record but designate only one user as the primary in-house expert for the disease.
Last Updated	Displays the date and time that you update the record.
Symptoms	Type the biological manifestations that indicate the presence of the disease.
Incubation Period	Type the period between the pathogen infection of an individual and the manifestation of the disease the pathogen causes.
Response	Type the recommended precautions to curtail the spread of the disease.

Adding Details to Disease Records

After a user creates a disease record, public health professionals can use the associated views to develop details about cases and medications, publish FAQs and solution documents on internal and external Web sites, associate media, such as report documents and photographs, with the record, and specify training courses for the disease.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To add details to a disease record

Navigate to the Diseases screen, then the Disease List view.
Drill down on the Name field of the disease record.

Navigate to the appropriate view, and create a new record.

The following table describes some of the views.

View	Description
Attachments	Use this view to associate electronic files, such as documents, images, and other media, with the disease. For more information, see Adding Attachments to Cases.
Cases	Use this view to associate existing case records with the disease, create a new case record, and review the case history for the disease. For more information, see Creating Case Records.
FAQs	Use this view to access predefined solution files. Drill down on the Name field to add solution files. Navigate to the Administration - Solution screen, and create solutions to frequently asked questions (FAQs). For more information about creating solutions, see Siebel Field Service Guide.
Medications	Use this view to associate medications with the disease. The medication record might include information about drug interactions, other applications of the drug, and acceptable substitutes.
Service Requests	Use this view to initiate a request for action or service fulfillment for the disease. For more information, see Managing Calls for Suspected Health Threats and Siebel Field Service Guide.
Training	Use this view to associate the disease with professional course work that provides medical training and that can help prepare public health professionals to respond in an emergency.

Managing Disease Response Inventory

You use inventory locations to identify the storage location and fulfillment source of products. Public health professionals add inventory locations and then manage the inventory at each location to increase efficiency when responding to a public health crisis. For more information about setting up locations, see Defining Locations.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To set up a disease response inventory location

Navigate to the Inventory screen, the Inventory Locations view.
Create a new record, and complete the fields as appropriate.
Drill down on the Name field of the new record.
From the Inventory Location form, navigate to the appropriate view to enter inventory details.
For example, navigate to the Product Inventory view, create a new record, and enter the details for the product, the inventory level, and the assets associated with the product.

Managing Medical Inventory Transactions

Public health professionals use the Inventory Transactions screen to move inventory, such as vaccines and medical equipment, from one location to another. For information about managing inventory, inventory transactions, and locations, see Siebel Field Service Guide.

To manage a medical inventory transaction

Navigate to the Inventory Transactions screen.

Create a new record, and complete the fields as appropriate.

The following table describes some of the fields.

Field	Description
Transaction #	Displays an automatically generated number that uniquely identifies the transaction.
Transaction Date/Time	Displays the date and time that you create the transaction.
Type	Select the type of transaction. Values include Adjustment, Allocate, and Over-the-counter.
Product	Select the name of the product in inventory.
Part #	Displays the part number for the product that you select.
Qty	Type the number of items in the transaction.
Source Location	Select the location of the inventory items.
Destination Location	Select the destination location for the transaction inventory.
Commit	Select this check box to indicate that the transaction is committed.
Source Availability	Displays the availability of the inventory items at the source location. Values include Customer Owned, In Transit, and Reserved.
Source Status	Displays the status of the inventory items at the source location. Values include Good and Defective.
Destination Availability	Displays the availability of the inventory items at the destination location. Values include Customer Owned, In Transit, On Hand, On Order, and Reserved.
Destination Status	Displays the status of the inventory items at the destination location. Values include Good and Defective.
Comments	Type optional instructions and information about the transaction.
Organization	Displays the organization that owns the product.
Serialized	Displays a check in the check box, if applicable, when you select a product.

Managing Calls for Suspected Health Threats

Agents at call centers accept inbound calls that appear as a flashing icon on the CTI toolbar. After accepting the call, the agent creates a service request record to capture details about the call. An agency can use service requests to track health complaints, determine whether similar complaints exist, and escalate complaints to a case.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To manage a health threat call

Navigate to the Service screen, then the Service Requests List view.
Create a new record and add details, including a summary of the call and the last name of the caller.
Expand the Service Request form using the show more button.
In the Other Information section of the form, associate a disease with the record.

Searching for Information About Health Topics

Agents at call centers search for information to provide to callers using a knowledge base containing FAQs, documents, and information. When information is incomplete or missing, agents escalate a request for information to a public health specialist. Users create, approve, and release new content for agent use.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To search for health information

Click the Search icon (binoculars) on the toolbar to begin the search.
In the Search form, complete the following steps:
1. In the Look In field, select Diseases.
2. In the Name field, enter the name of the disease, and click Search.
  The search results appear in the Results list, which appears after the Search form.
3. In the Results list, drill down on the Name field of the appropriate record.
  The disease record is selected in the All Diseases list.
4. (Optional) Click the Search icon again to close the Search view.
In the All Diseases view, drill down on the Name field of the disease record.
(Optional) Navigate to the appropriate view to access attachments, cases, medications, service requests, and training associated with the disease.
Navigate to the FAQs view, and locate the appropriate item for the caller request in the list.
Open the FAQ by drilling down on the Name field.

Creating and Modifying Health Topic Content

As agents at call centers receive unanticipated questions about health topics, they alert their managers to the need for new content. The manager has administrative authority to create content projects to add or update items in the content library.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Public Health Cases.

To create and modify public health topic content

Navigate to the Administration - Solution screen, then the Solutions view.
To create a solution record, complete the following steps:
1. Create a new record and specify the Name, FAQ, and Description.
  The description is the answer to the question.
2. Drill down on the Name field of the solution record.
3. Navigate to the Resolution Documents view, and add any relevant attachments.
4. Navigate to the Solution Categories view, and categorize the solution as appropriate.
5. In the solution record, update the Status field from Draft to Final, and select the check boxes for the Publish Internal field or the Publish External field, as appropriate.
  Internal publications are shared with appropriate Oracle Siebel users, while external publications are shared with users of Oracle’s Siebel customer Web application.
To associate the solution with a disease record, complete the following steps:
1. Navigate to the Diseases screen, then the Disease List view.
2. Drill down on the Name field of the disease record, and navigate to the FAQs view.
3. Create a new record and associate the newly created solution with the record.