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Preparing your outpatient facility for a pandemic

Medical Environment Update, September 1, 2009

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Each year, medical facilities around the country use the months leading up to annual flu season to prepare for the possibility of an influenza pandemic.

But never before have these preparations been so real and urgent. Technically, the world is in the midst of a pandemic, as declared by the World Health Organization, but the threat of a severe pandemic that would flood the nation’s healthcare system has rarely been so imminent.

Unfortunately, many medical facilities are finding that it’s difficult to prepare for something that is so unpredictable and that even medical experts know so little about. Although the influenza A H1N1 outbreaks in the spring were relatively mild, there is no guarantee the same virus, coupled with seasonal flu, won’t come back with more serious consequences.

From the perspective of an outpatient facility, a mild case of H1N1 this winter could actually mean a strong surge for outpatient facilities and physician offices, says Paul Biddinger, MD, medical director for emergency preparedness and emergency physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and chair of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Committee on Preparedness.

“I think the biggest unknown is not even so much how people will react, but how the virus is going to unfold,” Biddinger says. “In previous pandemics, there has been a second wave with significant illness. Sometimes that illness has been more mild; sometimes it has been more severe, like 1918. If the second wave of H1N1 causes mostly mild illness, I think outpatient providers will feel the brunt of the surge of patients. If the virus causes more severe illness, it may be more in the emergency department and in the hospital setting.”

Regardless of severity, outpatient facilities should prepare, just as hospitals do, for a surge of patients, a potential shortage of employees, and ways to reduce transmission of the disease within the facility.

To assist smaller medical facilities, the CDC has released 10 steps that medical offices and outpatient facilities can take to prepare for the upcoming flu season. Below we touch on some of the most important areas.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

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