October 2011

Could pandemic flu plans save employees a trip

to the doctor?

By Gail McAtee

Think back to the year 2009. Headlines like “Swine Flu Death Toll Since April Is Nearly 10,000” drive home the message that the world is as vulnerable to influenza now as it was in 1918 when the Spanish Flu killed 50 million people worldwide. Nightly news carried updates on the national effort to manufacture and distribute a vaccine while governments, hospitals, businesses, and private citizens learned how to prepare and respond to an influenza outbreak. We got lucky. Do you remember? The L.A. Times reported in March 2010 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the final toll for the 2009 swine flu outbreak was 59 million infections, 265,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000 deaths.

	Disinfecting common areas (top) and encouraging employees to use hand sanitizer (left) were factors in the reduction of sick leave used by SORM employees.

That was 2009. You probably remember the flurry of activity preparing and refining agency’s pandemic plans and getting staff ready to implement the plans. Do you remember what you did with all those plans on how you would respond to an outbreak of influenza? You might save yourself some money and a trip to the doctor by taking those plans out of the drawer and brushing them off now.

The holidays aren’t the only thing you can count on cropping up this time of year. Autumn ushers in the influenza season. Since 2008, SORM has practiced the infection control aspect of its pandemic plan during the fall flu season with good results. A recent review of absenteeism at SORM conducted by our human resources staff noted lost time related to flu-like illness had be reduced by half between 2008 and 2010. That’s a nice bonus for having tested our pandemic preparedness.

Are you prepared? You can be. Now is a great time to focus on the practical aspects of your pandemic plan. Controlling illness in your office begins with educating your staff and practicing the desired behaviors to control the spread of infection. It is essential that everyone accepted personal responsibility for precautionary measures to ensure their own health and safety as well as the health of their families, friends, and co-workers.

At SORM, we placed bottles of hand sanitizer around the office and encouraged employees to take advantage of them. Common areas such as the elevators, entry doors, and security keypads were wiped down routinely by our safety officer – and more frequently if we had a suspected outbreak. Employees received notice of vaccination opportunities and educational e-mails from our safety officer explaining the benefits of frequent and thorough hand washing. The agency’s timekeeper began surveillance on the use of sick leave that might indicate a significant infectious outbreak (a trigger for more advanced elements of our pandemic plan).

One challenge that quickly became apparent was employees would come to work knowing they are symptomatic for influenza, because of a special project, a deadline, or a sense of obligation to the rest of the team. Employees must understand that if they are sick they are not doing the agency any good by infecting the rest of their team. Supervisors should be vigilant in ensuring sick employees do not come to work, but rather stay home until they are no longer contagious, and should be prepared to send sick employees home, sometimes over their objections.

To summarize:

• Review your plan and policies for controlling communicable disease and update them as necessary;
• Emphasize with staff the importance of effective hand washing and sanitizing and review the placement of hand-sanitizer stations and make them more visible with signs encouraging their use;
• Train staff and building custodians on the use of antibacterial wipes for telephones, work stations, copiers, door knobs, elevator buttons, and other common objects;
• Review the symptoms of influenza with staff and supervisors to help them identify people who might be contagious and enforce any policies you may have about social distancing and the use of sick leave.

For Halloween, send your employees the link to SORM’s fun and educational “Pandemic Flu Preparation” video (www.sorm.state.tx.us/Media/SpotlightOnSafety/Pandemic/PandemicFlu.php) that covers all the basics for infection control, not to mention first-class recommendations for fighting off zombie invasions!

Gail McAtee is the director of the Agency Administration division.