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H1N1 virus: Pandemic crisis response
Notes for companies on pandemic response
- Contact your local public health office for recommended procedures
- Make alcohol gel widely available and encourage its proper use
- Post approved self-screening guidelines and authorize supervisors to support them
- Consider emergency-status sick leave to allow employees to self-screen beyond personal sick days
- Prepare a written plan and get feedback from your public health unit
Role clarification (a relay team) if someone becomes sick at work
- As an employer, your responsibility is to be responsive and see they get medical attention
- If you've dialed 911, EMS becomes responsible for time-to-hospital
- The hospital then takes on diagnosis and treatment and reports on the patient's condition
- If the diagnosis is a serious communicable disease, public health joins the team and deals with etymology, risk assessment, interviewing people the person came into contact with, tracing people who might have had contact, issuing quarantines and taking the lead role
Basic communication issues
- You should have one central source for credible and timely information
- Refer journalists to sources according to roles as clarified above
- Log media calls and try to acknowledge them within 20 minutes — log what you promise, then do it
- All employees should know your preparedness and response measures — actively inform them
- Emotional intelligence is important — you want people to know enough to take good care of themselves while avoiding speculation and panic — manage for this
eBook on crisis communications
Resources for preparedness and response
- How to fight the flu
http://www.fightflu.ca/howdoyoufightflu-eng.html
PDFs for printing infection prevention posters
http://www.fightflu.ca/tools-outils-eng.html - Public Health Agency of Canada
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/index-eng.php - Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety
http://www.ccohs.ca/pandemic/subject/businesscontinuityplannin.html - Guide to ethical considerations in pandemic preparedness planning
http://www.jointcentreforbioethics.ca/people/documents/upshur_stand_guard.pdf
Topics such as restricting liberty in the interest of public health are bookmarked in the PDF - Canadian portal for stories on the H1N1 virus
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/swineflu - Center for Disease Control pandemic portal
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/general_info.htm
Major North American city resources
- New York City Office of Emergency Management
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/home/home.shtml - Toronto Office of Emergency Management
http://www.toronto.ca/wes/techservices/oem/index.htm - Toronto Public Health communicable disease portal
http://www.toronto.ca/health/cdc/communicable_disease_surveillance/monitoring/alerts/swine_flu.htm
Fact sheets in 19 languages
http://www.toronto.ca/health/cdc/h1n1/multilingual_resources.htm
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