Health Industry Boosts Ebola Precautions

Spooked by what appears to be a widening of Ebola incidences—with cases now reported beyond West Africa, in Spain as well as the U.S.—health-care providers in America are implementing precautions to prevent infectons here, and to react properly if symptoms become apparent. Ebola has not yet infected a single person on U.S. soil, but medical officials and health experts say the scare is giving them a chance to reinforce and test infection-control procedures. Among the initiatives: Public hospitals in New York City have sent actors with mock symptoms into emergency rooms to test how good the triage staff is at identifying and isolating possible cases, a small Ohio hospital hung up signs imploring patients to tell nurses immediately if they recently traveled to West Africa, and a national ambulance company has put together step-by-step instructions on how to wrap the interior of a rig with plastic sheeting while transporting a patient.