Best Practices in Pandemic Preparedness
January 22, 2010 - The University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP Promising Practices site is now being updated frequently to include useful strategies and practices in response to the H1N1 pandemic. The website includes best practices in models of care; communication; mitigation; and dealing with at-risk individuals. In addition, there are search features for personal preparedness, home care, and school toolkits, among other searches, and many of the best practices are applicable to schools, although not school-focused. Materials represent public health activities and outreach in 40 US states, including 51 cities/counties.
Some of the new practices featured on the site include, among others:
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H1N1 flu partner webcast that describes how Wisconsin reached a large number of people and saved funds and staff time by providing weekly H1N1 updates to partners via webcast instead of phone; and
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A school vaccination campaign spearheaded by South Carolina in which unique strategies for establishing and staffing school vaccination clinics were used.
According to the website for the South Carolina school example, the state was able to quickly and efficiently implement school-based H1N1 influenza vaccination clinics in large school districts. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) recognized that the organization of school-based H1N1 vaccination clinics in such a vast area would require an extraordinary planning effort and quickly initiated a strategy meeting including its staff and school district leaders to coordinate activities.
The successful outcome was accomplished by such factors as: 1) district personnel surveying parents on their preferred times and locations for school-based clinics;
2) holding evening vaccination clinics; 3) recruiting nursing staff for orientation, training and to work as vaccine administrators and having additional school personnel assume various roles in clinic planning and execution effort to ensure organization, safety, and security; 4) creating a parent packet, which included a cover letter from the health department’s agency’s deputy commissioner for health services, a parental consent form and the Vaccine Information Statement; and
5) using the health department’s regular Immunization Hotline, expanding its hours, developing an H1N1-focused script, and having staff from the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health's Care Line take calls from parents and the general public through this number; nurse consultants also were on call to answer detailed medical questions posed via the hotline.
To learn more about this best practice, click here.
Source: CIDRAP Promising Practices: Pandemic Preparedness Tools Website.