Bird flu drill prepares hospitals for the real thing
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007..._prepares_hospitals_real_thing/?breaking_news
By JESSICA COSDEN contact
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
A woman walked into the Cape Coral Hospital emergency room Tuesday afternoon complaining of a fever and nasty cough. Throughout her stay, her condition would demand the resources and energy of nearly every department in the hospital, from the emergency room to the morgue. The health department and Centers for Disease Control would also be involved.
Emergency room nurse Trish Laub, left, diligently takes notes as she plays the victim and is whisked out of the emergency room and to the intensive care unit by ER director Polly Spate, center, and respiratory therapist Nicole Noonan, right, at Cape Coral Hospital on Tuesday. They were participating in a mock drill centered around two cases of bird flu. Lee Memorial Health Systems staged the pandemic drill at the hospital to assess the needs of hospital patients and employees in the event of a bird flu case.
It was all part of an avian flu exercise, the first of its kind in Southwest Florida. Health officials are no longer questioning whether the bird flu pandemic could hit the area; it’s more a matter of when.
The question is this: how prepared are we?
Tuesday’s scenario gave hospital staff a glimpse.
It was one of four drills taking place this week at the hospitals of Lee Memorial Health System, said coordinator Connie Bowles. Hospital employees coordinated with the county health department for the exercise.
“This was to raise awareness, to stimulate conversation and thought,” said Bowles, a registered nurse. Officials have been working on plans to apply in an actual incident, and what they learned Tuesday will be included in those plans, she said.
For the past three weeks, Bowles set hospital employees up for the drill. They were initially sent an e-mail describing a bird flu pandemic in Europe. The second week, doctors and nurses were informed the flu it had made its way to the United States. Finally, last week, the bird flu was reported in Florida.
Tuesday’s scenario: a woman’s son has just returned from Germany, where a bird flu pandemic recently struck. The woman is showing all the symptoms.
In a real case, said Bowles, the patient would have been put into a negative pressure room immediately. Only one nurse would treat her in order to limit exposure.
The pretend patient was immediately seen by Dr. Timothy Dougherty, who suspected bird flu because of her symptoms and her son’s recent visit to Europe. Dougherty ordered routine blood work, a quick influenza test, antibiotic treatment, Tamiflu, and a chest X-ray.
He also directed the nurse to contact the health department. Only the health department is able to take test samples for the diagnosis of bird flu, Bowles said.
Communications between hospital and health department went glitch-free.
“They got back with us in a timely manner,” Bowles said.
In reality, the test sample would have been flown to a lab in Tampa, with results in as soon as four hours.
Dougherty said the first alarm was the patient’s list of symptoms in the middle of summer. During winter months, Dougherty said, she may have been treated as a normal flu patient because it’s so common at that time.
“Bird flu can look just like a cold or regular flu,” Dougherty said.
During the summer, it would “raise our suspicion if we got seven or eight in one day, all with the same symptoms,” he said.
Soon after the mock patient was definitively diagnosed with bird flu with lab results, her condition quickly got worse. She was admitted and put in the intensive care unit but later “died.”
The drill ended after she was taken to the morgue.
“One person can affect all of the different departments,” Bowles said.
Obviously, the emergency room, intensive care unit and morgue were affected. But so were X-ray, central supply for provisions like masks, pharmacy for Tamiflu and other drugs, and plant operations, whose workers can convert a room or unit to negative pressure if needed.
A new experience for all involved — Lee Memorial Health System has conducted mass casualty, bioterror, and trauma drills in the past, but nothing like this — the drill gave health officials plenty to think about.
“It elicited more questions than providing answers,” Bowles said. “This is something we’re not used to dealing with.”
