Liaison Public Health Nurses (LPHN)
Liaison Public Health Nurses (LPHN) are an integral component of the public health link and serve as
liaisons to strengthen communication and collaboration between Public Health and Infection
preventionists (IP) in acute care hospitals and non-hospital healthcare settings, such as clinics
and jail medical services. LPHNs work with IPs to increase traditional disease reporting and improve
surveillance to enhance early detection and preparedness efforts in potential critical situations.
They provide education and consultation to hospitals to identify and respond to potential risks and
threats during hospital outbreaks and assist with investigations. LPHNs regularly attend infection
control committee meetings in many hospitals and provide a variety of educational material and
promotional activities to support individual hospital programs.
(See also
Hospital Outreach Unit and Healthcare Associated Infections.)
Coroner's Case investigation:
The LPHN performs a daily case-by-case analysis of coroner’s data to identify and follow-up
suspicious and infectious disease related deaths in Los Angeles County and distributes notification
of these deaths to the appropriate units.
ACDC Projects:
Web-based Confidential Morbidity Report (WebvCMR):
WebvCMR is an advanced electronic reporting system,
whose main purpose is to make disease investigation, tracking, and reporting of communicable disease
more efficient. It is offered to all LAC hospitals, as well as to hospitals in the Long Beach and
Pasadena jurisdictions, and its goals are to improve timely reporting, increase standardization and
accuracy of reported CMR information, and to create a secure, user-friendly site that will encourage
health professionals to comply with State regulations on reporting communicable diseases. LPHNs educate
and train healthcare providers on initiating and utilizing the WebvCMR, available web-based communication
and training resources, and promote its continual use.
Emergency Department (ED) Surveillance
LPHNs respond to and investigate ED signal reports received from the
Syndromic Surveillance team to
identify communicable disease and potential
collection of patient assessment data from the IP for review and analysis, and partners with the
Syndromic Surveillance team to determine needs.
Disease Management:
LPHNs continue ongoing epidemiologic investigation and surveillance of Legionellosis
and Coccidioidomycosis to monitor disease trends, detect outbreaks, and improve the timeliness of
mandated reporting of suspected cases of communicable disease.
Resources
