Zeitschrift für Gesundheitsfürsorge und Prävention

Abstrakt

The Role of the Epidemiologist in Palliative Care

Adriana Caruntu

The epidemiologist is a member of the palliative care team and has an important role in medical activity. The year 2020 brought in the importance of epidemiologists at the level of a palliative care institution, but also at national and international level. The Covid 19 epidemic makes us realize that we need palliative care epidemiologists to benefit from training and recognition courses, to be more involved in writing protocols, procedures, projects and epidemiology curricula in palliative care. How to prevent and treat infections is important in a modern society, in a world with experience in palliative care. The correct identification of epidemiological aspects for patients, relatives and employees working in palliative care is a necessity. After this year’s experience with the pandemic, I think it would be good to invite epidemiologists internationally and discuss the problems identified during this period, the existing needs, to talk about what we should do as a strategic plan in the future in epidemiology to protects health nationally and internationally. The epidemiologist can no longer remain in a shadow cone, his role is vital and must be supported in medical activity. We can organize international conferences with epidemiologists in the form of a webinar in which to discuss at the level of each country what type of problems have been identified, we have similar needs at the international level, there are specific problems in certain regions. What are the identified risk factors, what measures are needed, are there projects that should be implemented internationally in the epidemiological field? In this period of the pandemic due to Covid 19, several medical staff with this specialization are needed to work full time in a medical institution. I would say that the importance of this noble profession somehow stood out during this period. For institutions that provide palliative care services, epidemiologists provide protocols for surveillance of nosocomial infections, methodology for surveillance of difficult clostridium infection, protocols for disinfection of medical equipment, disinfection methods depending on the space where it is applied: medical office, treatment room, patient salon, food office, dining room and staff offices. Protocols with the types of nosocomial infections in patients with chronic hospitalization are drawn up by epidemiologists, who ensure the training of staff and their implementation in the hospital. The field of epidemiology aims at preventing nosocomial infections in the field of health in order to ensure a good medical care of the patients and does not give rise to infections, respectively complications of the patients’ health condition.