The ASTHO topic here doesn’t appear to be read much, and I think its my fault for giving it a less than catchy name.
If you wanted to go to one of the Keystone/ASTHO conferences to gather community thoughts about whether various proposed infection control measures will be practicable, this is an experimental opportunity to do so online.
Details on how to participate in the conference at CE are in the existing ASTHO thread here in the discussion topics.
These conferences are designed to gather public input that the Keystone organization will be providing to the Bush administration toward formulating national flu policy. The online format is a grassroots experiment that Keystone ‘blessed’ last Friday and which was mentioned at the Seattle meeting today (though they said ‘fluwiki’ instead of CurEvents). They will be accepting the chat log from the online meeting to see if the input is helpful and if the format looks promising for future public input sessions.
So far the face-to-face meetings have been held in Atlanta and Seattle. Syracuse NY and Lincoln NE are the remaining scheduled live meetings.
Keystone needs to submit its guidance by December. I hope people will come participate and thereby support both the public input aspect and use of the web as a means to get public input.
my apologies for this duplicate post, the first time I tried to post this with a catchier title than ‘astho conference’, my title was eaten by a grue.
PS: the meeting is at CE because the wiki has no chatroom.
LOL… That happens at my house also…. What time is the chat?
Lisa the GP, I would like to ask. Did you attend one of the face to face conferences? If so, what was your impression? Were they really looking for answers? or are they just looking for a why to soothe the public?
I ask because the answers are out there, if the Bush administration really wants to help. If the administration is just wanting to know a few specifics that he can address in this time of political anxiety. Well….
I think a big fix would be the health care intrastructure. This includes Public Health and hospitals. If this adminstration thinks that hospitals can continue functioning efficiently by cutting Medicare payments, requiring hospitals to use resources to comply with “pay for performance” and allow medical malpractice and insurance denials to continue, then we may not need a pandemic for the health care system to fail.
So, Unless Bush and his administration, have some card up their sleeve or they are going to commit substancial dollars to get everything fixed. I have little hope that this exchange will do anything more than be a little note of accomplishment on a piece of paper.
I have extremely little faith in this administration. I know politics are taboo here… I just really get frustrated when I see one more example of inepitude. Jeez… Michael Levitt has certainly told him what is needed. Olsterholm has given testimony in front of congress as well as Julie Gerberding. The transcripts are there to read….
Lisa,
In light of the post above, I had a thought… In the event that I do not make the chat tomorrow night, please bring up this:
If the government wants prepareness compliance, then they will have to committ to “foot the bill” for medicare and medicaid prescriptions. Very clearly, the Pandemic plan spelled out to stock up on medications. (As well as multiple other reliable organizations.) This is something I believe has been changed in the plan.
The government is under contact with the American people for Medicare and Medicaid. If the government sets the standard then they can also require Insurance Companies to “foot the bill”.
This is one area that Congress or the Bush administration will have to own up to. You cannot make recommendations, be the responsible party…. and then just change the rules, because you do not want to pay for it.
The goverment has the responsibility to protect the citizens. By denying them the opportunity to comply with recommendations they themselves set. Would that not set them up for lawsuits?
Of course, you would have to be rich to sue….. :)
Lisa the GP, Please post directions here for how to access the chat room. You will get a better response if you post directions here ASAP. You’ll also give people a chance to register at CE if they aren’t already registered there. That’s a prerequisite to participate in the chat rooms, right?
I cannot chat in CE
chat cancelled due to the banning of Lisa at CE. Seems she once again waaaaay overstepped her bounds.
Yes. Way over bounds. I got in an argument with Arubi in the dungeon and she threatened to send out personal information about me to others in private correspondence. Since she doesn’t actually have any personal information about me, I don’t know what kind of stuff she might be making up to send in such notes, but I certainly don’t want a bunch of fictions floating around as if they must be fact because they came from a moderator.
After discussing the matter with offline friends who are members there, the un-admitted reason for the ban seems to be that a0 was okay with talking about the ASTHO materials on Sunday so long as it had no official connections; once ASTHO became interested in it he didn’t want CE potentially involved or gaining official attention he didn’t want.
He has long been disgruntled that the flu clinic has come to dominate his site, which he intended and intends as a *general* news discussion board. My guess is that he just didn’t want the potential scrutiny—didn’t want to wind up on anyone’s ‘radar’.
The chat IS cancelled. However I will make alternate arrangements, eithe via chat or by a message-board system, so that people who cannot go to the regional conferences can still have input before Keystone finishes its data-gathering.
CE members may be interested to know that I did not violate any of CE written constitution. The argument with Arubi started and stayed in the dungeon.
I think it says bad things about Arubi that she’s tried to keep a file on people of bad things that she can say about them or personal information she can disclose; what she said about me, other than the fact I’m not practicing, is incorrect confabulation based on a few scraps of information that she has pieced together wrongly, and including some ‘data’ that isn’t even mine in the first place.
We are not in the least interested in that aspect of things. What happens at CE stays at CE as far as personal interactions go.
I will close the thread and leave the info. Post again if there are specific plans.