October 29, 2009

The Latest:
H1N1 cases continue to increase in the Western Wisconsin region. Local physician offices are seeing significant increases in patients reporting influenza-like illness (ILI). Sacred Heart and St. Joseph’s Hospital continue to monitor the rates of hospitalizations, ED visits and deaths within the community.  Incident command (pre-Code Orange) is in effect, and we are monitoring all trends (supply use, illnesses of colleagues and patients, and vaccine/antiviral use) that may impact our services and community.

We have been planning appropriately and are prepared.

Signage/Messaging

• We are asking patients that register for services if they have any ILI symptoms, and if so, are asking them to wear a mask while waiting in public spaces.
• We have also provided brief handouts to our patients that enter through registration, or are present in our waiting areas to be aware of ILI symptoms (described) and to place a mask on if they are symptomatic. 
• In addition, we have informed the general public of our regional change in visitation, to reduce potential H1N1 transmissions to our patients. 
• If adults come to the hospital with children despite the notices, we are asking them if a parent could wait in the main lobby area while the other parent/adult visits.  We are not restraining visitors, but are asking for community cooperation. 
• We have recently added “Caution” signs to further make this change visible to visitors.
  

Obama’s Declaration – What does it mean to us?
You have probably heard about President Obama’s declaration of a State of National Emergency on 10/25/09. While this is an appropriate emergency enactment, it is unusual for a full national activation. This is good news for us, because this enactment allows hospitals to support emergency transfer and expansion of resources in certain cases where it makes sense for the care/treatment of affected patients during an emergency.  We are proceeding on our normal plan until the volume reaches the point where we need to activate these systems, but this step allows this process to be expedited, if needed for the support of our region.   

Questions – 2-1-1- number may be used for questions from the general public 

www.pandemic.wisconsin.gov          

www.pandemicflu.gov           

www.cdc.flu.gov   

www.bereadyEC.com