Bloomington preparing for possibility of avian flu spread

On March 9, Monroe county and surrounding counties will take part in a "tabletop drill" to talk through what to do if a patient has been identified as having avian flu. Every community's hospital, department of health, police, fire and ambulance services will be represented.\n"If we have an event, it will take all of us," said Vickie VanDeventer, infection control practitioner at Bloomington Hospital.\nThe Indiana State Department of Health gave hospitals until Aug. 31 to have their plans implemented, but VanDeventer had a personal goal of March.\nUsing guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health, VanDeventer is modifying the hospital's general emergency plan to create a formal procedure for the event of an avian flu pandemic.\n"My philosophy is to have a good basic emergency preparedness plan that can be tweaked for whatever the event is," she said. "We may never see pandemic flu, but we may have a chemical or nuclear attack -- or who knows what. We need a basic plan in place where we know how to get extra staff and supplies when there's a large influx of patients."\nFor any "code yellow," the staff is sent to a specified location to be triaged out to different locations to treat specific needs. Supplies such as masks and personal protective equipment are being stockpiled.\nThe staff is also on high alert for elevated numbers of patients with respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms.\nIn a large-scale outbreak, the hospital would send out a press release to all medical providers, detailing a staging plan. Based on their levels of symptoms, patients would be asked to stay home or contact their personal physicians; those at the highest stage would report to the hospital.\nBloomington has a community-wide flu planning group that meets monthly. Representatives from the hospital, the Indiana State Department of Health, ambulatory care clinics, schools and the IU Health Center are on the committee and participated in a public health forum and education night in December. They also created a teaching sheet about influenza and infection control.\nBecause it is an outpatient clinic, the IU Health Center plans to dovetail its efforts with the community's.\n"How we respond will be similar to how a doctor's office will respond," said Nancy Macklin, IU Health Center director of nursing. "We don't have the facilities or resources to be a hospital for the University."\nThe IU Health Center is also working closely with the IU Office of Risk Management, which does emergency disaster planning. \nTo see Indiana's state plan for an avian flu pandemic, visit the Indiana State Department of Health's Web site at \nwww.in.gov/isdh.