Has your management team had a discussion on the overall goal of your organization’s or community’s seasonal and pandemic influenza mitigation plan including the role of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions? If you haven’t I’m guessing you’re waiting for the World Health Organization (WHO) or Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) to hold your hand. Good luck with that.  Need a hint, how about “Promote a healthy and productive work environment for employees/volunteers and operations by mitigating to the extent possible the impact of seasonal and/or pandemic influenza.”

Have you stopped to consider the benefits to your organization of reducing seasonal influenza infections annually as an exercise in pandemic preparedness? If not it tells me:

  • You’re really not interested in the health of your employees or their families
  • You’re not interested in the operational efficiency of your business
  • You’re willing to increase healthcare costs and decrease revenue

 

So what are some of the tangible benefits of being Influenza Ready?

  • Increase public awareness and understanding of the influenza hazard
  • Improve community pre-planning for influenza pandemics and all-hazards
  • Creates minimum standard guidelines for organizations and community entities to follow for adequate influenza readiness
  • Encourage consistency in educational materials and response among communities and even states
  • Recognize people, entities and communities that have adopted Influenza Ready guidelines
  • Less disruption to health, social activities and the economy

 

For healthcare organizations the collateral benefits of seasonal influenza strategy and vaccination campaign are many:

  • Decrease background disease
  • Potential cross protection H or N
  • Higher revenue -Decrease loss work time
  • Decrease health care costs
  • Herd Immunity
  • Minimize potential for reassortment
  • Protect vulnerable population
  • Decrease liability
  • Differential diagnosis
  • Antiviral triage
  • Reputation

 

Is any of this obtainable? Yes it is. The chart below looks at the relationship between actions you should initiate internally and local, state and federal recommendations. At each emergency action trigger point there is a set of corresponding actions. The key is you need to have your own surveillance activities that serve as a determinant for implementation, adjustment and curtailment of various interventions in your operation.

If you’re interested in learning more the reduction of employee primary, secondary, and tertiary absenteeism, and presenteeism which results in annual cost savings sufficient to support pandemic preparedness program contact me at abetteremergency@gmail.com