Originally posted by Selil:
Watcher I agree pretty much with the issues you laid out, but the problem still remains that the indigent plague carrier is not going to seek any kind of medical attention unless it is to late. Unfortunately you are correct that the political baggage is tiresome, but as thought leaders we have to go beyond and at least give correct recommendations. The number and type of cases (advanced symptomatic) seen in emergency rooms proves that people without insurance don't even enter the medical monitoring system. Ever. We have to get beyond "socialized" as bugaboo words and simplistic axioms of rejection. We also have to get beyond a standard of "perfect" in talking about implementing these types of systems. The problem is complex and I can not claim to have all of the answers but I can see that the current system is badly broken. The political punditry surrounding healthcare is fallow ground for ideas and concepts. Department of defense has a mission to look beyond the borders at threats external. Law enforcement has a mission to look at threats of criminal nature. The pandemic threat is an internal threat with a substantive history at least as rich with examples as war. Yet even though the death toll in previous pandemics equalled major wars it is given little to no equivalent concern. The reasons are legion. Mostly the political footballs of failed medical policy, big pharma, the AMA, and various political profit seeking constituencies.
Ok, so let's get started & do some serious "thought processing" here:

Initial Analysis: First off, the above post by Selil should be the starting point. But the following rules need to be attached to it:

01 The entire concept of "Universal Healthcare" does not apply to this process in any way, shape, or form. NONE. This step is a basic requirement, for political purposes. If we don't do this, and stick to it, the entire process is DOA.
02 The information release compliance areas of HIPA (the rules are arcane, and the penalties, even for accidental disclosure are draconian) are currently also applied to public health agencies. These HIPA requirements need to be eliminated for (a) public health reporting purposes, and (b) for private entities making such reports solely to local public health agencies. We need accurate, detailed information fast, and guess what, HIPA requirements as applied out in the real world makes almost all of that process impractical.

So once 01 & 02 are done, now we can get serious about building a Pandemic EW (early warning) system. If you want to do it right the first time, and get it done quickly, here's how.

03 Forget the typical software design, where you get tons of committees together & re-build the "Camel". Takes way too long, and probably everybody here can imagine the results.
04 Solution: Take $500 mil, call up Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Founders of a little bitty corporation known as "Google"), tell them there is a project for the development and implementation of a Pandemic EW System (PEWS???) that is essential to the National Security of the United States of America, and it's Google's responsibility to make it happen. They have 3 years to get it done, and $500 mil. Federal anti-trust regs do not apply to this project.

Give them a copy of this thread, with all the posts, and then get the hell out of their way. Let them have at it.

Ok, so there's my "solution" for building a useful, workable, highly functional Pandemic EW System - ID the best and the brightest, tell 'em what the problem is and set the stage for them to handle it, turn them loose, and get the hell out of the way.

Then there's the entire healthcare issue. Oh yeah, that's a jewel. Next post...