• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Flu helps U.S. hospitals hone SARS disaster plans

Case Management Weekly, January 21, 2004

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Case Management Weekly!

When a glut of flu patients swamped medical workers in Nashville, TN, last month, Vanderbilt University Medical Center pulled out its SARS disaster plan.

For six hours, hospital officials considered setting up a special ward for flu patients, something right out of their pages for handling a SARS outbreak. Ultimately, the makeshift ward wasn't created because enough beds were freed up by discharging patients early. But the situation was a test of Vanderbilt's SARS response plan and helped work out some kinks. Some of the lessons learned from last year's SARS outbreak -- which killed 774 and sickened more than 8,000 in Asia and Canada -- have been useful during the flu season in this country.

SARS and influenza are similar, both being highly contagious viruses that spread mainly when an infected person coughs or sneezes. In the United States, flu kills an average of 36,000 people annually. SARS has not killed anyone in this country and was confirmed in only eight people in the United States last year. The precautions for preventing the spread of either disease are the same.

Source: Associated Press

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Case Management Weekly!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive