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H1N1 for the Fall–Are You Prepared?
Published on 23/09/09
by Carrie Brancheau, PHR
Recently, I attended a webinar put on by the Florida Retail Federation and given by Patrick J. Garner, RN, MPH, EMT of the Florida Department of Health. It was extremely informative and brought forward some important points, in particular the need to do Continuity of Operation Planning (COOP).
According to Mr. Gardner, upwards of 40% of individuals may get sick this fall. For example the CDC’s Flu View (August 2009) shows the Southeast as already having widespread influenza activity. What has been unusual about H1N1 is that it has not shown the typical slowdown during summer months for influenza.
Since the H1N1 virus can continue shedding 6 to 7 days after the abatement of fever–we should expect that sickness and absenteeism could be substantial and lengthy, as not all employees will fall ill at the same time. Businesses could see illness stretch over a several week period. Thought should also be given to what happens in the event that employees need to care for sick family members or children due to school and daycare closures.
If you don’t have a COOP plan, you might want to think about what you would do if your employees were not available to be in the office due to H1N1 for up to several months. Keep in mind four key areas when designing your COOP– Plans and Procedures, Implementation, Budget and Resources, and Active Risk Management.
Some of the best practices of both FEMA and Patrick Gardner suggest six main areas of consideration when putting a COOP plan in place:
Lines of Succession
Do you have a line of succession that is at least 3 deep per position?
Has it been updated regularly and widely published?
Calculate your expected absenteeism and use that as a factor, when creating your Succession line.
Alternate Locations
How will you use your primary facilities?
Do you have a secondary facility that can be used?
Do you have protocols in place for working at home or alternate workspaces to minimize exposure?
Do you have leave policies in place for such a contingency?
Communications
How will you communicate essential information?
How will you communicate the onset of an issue?
What will your ongoing communications look like?
How will you indicate when it is over?
Critical Applications
How will you maintain critical services? Equipment?
How will you access and share vital records, files, and databases?
Will you access these records from alternates work sites?
Critical or Core Services
How will you maintain critical or core services, such as payroll?
Is there cross training for critical functions?
Can these functions be performed from alternate work sites?
Employees
Have you planned for school closures or early dismissals? Employees caring for sick family members?
What about job sharing, flexible work schedules, telework, utilizing programs like Skype or the modifying of shifts?
Do you have policies/procedures in place to minimize exposure? To address the above conditions?
These are just some of the considerations to take into account. In closing, Mr. Gardner makes a very important point, that the majority of plans address loss of facilities or structures and not the lack of staff to perform critical functions, so it is important that COOP plans address the staff and facility issues both.
Continuity planning is not only a critical element when thinking about pandemics, I would recommend it as a part of your annual planning process in the event of any unforeseen disaster. As someone living and working in a hurricane zone, I have seen first hand the consequences of not having one.
For further resources see:
www.flu.gov
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
http://www.fema.gov/government/coop/index.shtm
https://government.hsin.gov/
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