Pandemic Influenza Plan - Questar III

Section 3: Healthcare Planning and Emergency Response
protection of current patients/residents as well as assistance in managing patient surge
where appropriate.
The hospital planning recommendations can serve as a model for planning in other
healthcare settings. All healthcare facilities/agencies should do the following:
• Create a planning team and develop a written plan that builds on the
emergency response plan.
• Ensure that key staff members have active Health Provider Network (HPN)
accounts and information in the Communications Directory is complete and
current.
• Establish a decision-making communications and coordinating structure that
can be tested during the Interpandemic Period and will be activated during an
influenza pandemic. Determine how to conduct surveillance for pandemic
influenza in healthcare personnel and, for nursing homes and homecare, in the
population served.
• Develop policies and procedures for managing pandemic influenza in patients
and staff including proper infection control practices.
• Educate and train healthcare personnel on pandemic influenza and the
healthcare facility’s response plan; reinforce infection control practices.
• Develop an educational package directed toward staff and families focusing
on the disease, its transmission and proper infection control procedures.
• Develop written material for visitors and others entering the facility focusing
on the disease, its transmission and proper infection control procedures.
• Understand the local and state Incident Command System (ICS) structures and
methods of communication and coordination with healthcare and public health
partners.
• Determine how the facility will communicate with
patients/residents/responsible parties and help educate the public regarding
prevention and control measures.
• Develop a plan for procuring the supplies (e.g., PPE) needed to manage
influenza patients.
• Develop a plan for maintaining/expanding operations during the pandemic
period by working with healthcare partners, LHD and the local OEM to
recruit volunteers.
• Determine how the facility will participate in the community plan for
distributing either vaccine or antiviral drugs, including possibly serving as a
point of dispensing and providing staff for alternative community points of
distribution.
Additional considerations for specific provider types are delineated below.
A. Nursing Homes
During a pandemic, hospitals will likely be at maximum capacity and hospital staff will
be overtaxed. Under these circumstances, there will have to be decisions made at the
State level to alter the normal standards of care. Therefore, nursing homes should focus
their pandemic planning on enhancing their ability to accept more fragile, sicker patients
February 7, 2006 3-15