Great Neck, N.Y.-based North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System plans to develop a biological containment unit to bolster its preparedness and response to infectious disease outbreaks.
North Shore-LIJ plans to model its bio-containment unit after the Nebraska Medicine Biocontainment Patient Care Unit at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and the Serious Communicable Disease Unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, both of which were successfully used to care for Ebola patients in recent months.
"In light of the public's anxiety about Ebola, it's clear that we need to develop a more-permanent solution to meeting public health needs in the event of a major infectious disease outbreak in the future," said Michael Dowling, president and CEO of North Shore-LIJ. "The global risk of Ebola is not going to disappear any time soon, and the threat of other contagious viruses — such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, the H1N1 virus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — will always be with us."
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