They are going to have to setup specialized teams that work for some period of time and are maintained in isolation while working. Then when their time period is up they are maintained in quarantine until appropriate time has passed. Then released to the general population when they have tested negative for the disease.
Given the above this is probably a more appropriate job for the military. They should set up field hospitals around the US to handle patients. The military is much better at setting up a rotation schedule an enforcing it than Civilian hospitals.
Ethics committees of hospitals should review whether Ebola victims should really be given access to extreme life support measures. They should be available to people enlisted to care for patients. But this is now a possible point of protocol failure (intubation and dialysis that is). Hospitals have a limited number of ventilators and kidney dialysis machines. Do you want those reused on the General patient population? Granted the internals of the machine that would come in contact with the patient are disposable. But the machine does need to be in the room if it is used on a patient. Some process needs to be set up as to when these devices can be placed back in general availability in the Hospital.
The point is a better plan than what has been put in place needs to devised. Patient encounters, gown-up and gown-down needs to be video taped and reviewed so that protocol violations can be found in near real time and addressed. Right now we are speculating there was a protocol violation (in Dallas at least) and relying on the memory of workers. Why when internet cameras can be purchased for less than $100?
Not mentioned in the coverage (that I have seen): was this nurse dedicated to this patient? When she was not gowned up did she assist any other nurses with any other patient care? What about the Doctor who saw this patient? Did he or she see any other patients at the hospital? The person cleaning the room did he or she clean the rooms of any other patient? Just some questions I would want answered if I were a patient in a facility treating Ebola.
>The military is much better at
unlikely. high turnover means skill loss and staff in early part of the learning curve.