No one knows whether swine flu (H1N1) will be the next disaster. But medical experts certainly believe that a pandemic flu is the major worldwide health concern for the next decade. In my opinion, fire and EMS personnel are a force in place for any type of calamity — and we need to prepare ourselves to answer the call.
This article will help give you some basic talking points on what to prepare for in the event of a pandemic flu as well as guidance on discussing critical infrastructure concerns to stakeholders in your community. Even if swine flu turns out to be a milder strain than initially feared, it serves as a timely reminder that we should begin developing plans at least to cope with a pandemic in the future.
The next pandemic flu will impact the world population because it will be a strain of flu that humans have not been exposed to. It may be swine flu or some other strain that mutates from species such as swine or bird to human. Once this occurs, the potential for a widespread pandemic flu would be very likely.
As the human population will have no natural immunity to this virus, the disease will be able to rapidly spread. Conservative estimations predict that 15-40 percent of the population will become either ill or unable to work.
Those in Fire/EMS will be faced with unprecedented numbers of ill patients, and will be required to staff crews while facing the same rates of illness within their own organization.
Critical infrastructure
It is important to understand what is meant by the term “critical infrastructure.” Critical infrastructure is the sectors that provide the production of essential goods and services, interconnectedness and operability, public safety and security that contribute to a strong national defense and thriving community. When the critical infrastructure is compromised, the welfare and standard of living is greatly impacted.
Specific areas of critical infrastructure include emergency services, banking and financial services, information technology, telecommunications, postal/shipping, and food and agriculture to name just a few.
One of the major impacts to both private and public sectors making up critical infrastructures will be from unprecedented rates of absenteeism due to sickness, quarantines, travel restrictions, family responsibilities and fear of contracting disease. With rates of absenteeism across disciplines, there will potentially be a shortage of workers to provide the basic needs for communities.
This will include Fire/EMS and healthcare workers. Items your organization needs to begin instituting regarding the critical infrastructure in your area are:
Planning
Fire and EMS are key players in preparing sectors of the critical infrastructure to meet the expected demands. Now is an excellent time to offer to speak to business groups on the potential problems they may face, and how to prepare now for such an event. Some recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security include:
- Establish a process for infection control, including offsite work options, and worker education.
- Establish surveillance protocols to monitor the health of employees and potential absentee rates.
- Develop pandemic specific operations plans to maintain critical services despite absenteeism. These could include cross-training of employees in other areas of the operation.
- Monitor international/national pan threat levels.
- Coordinate with officials to share plans, preparation, and response/recovery information.
- Establish partnerships with other members of the sector to provide mutual support and maintain essential services.
Operational considerations
Along with planning, businesses will need to develop written plans for maintaining essential operations and services with the onset of extreme levels of absenteeism or when other resources are not available. If they will need specific resources for their operation (such as fuel, raw material, chemicals, etc.), coordination should begin to develop contingency plans before a pandemic flu impacts those areas.
Bolstering the depth of reserves for essential workers at all levels will be a critical concern. Developing a dialogue with similar companies or even competing services may be important to maintain operations. It may possible to share employees as a way to provide services and remain fiscally strong through the waves of illnesses.
Organizations will need to provide delegations of authority and orders of succession planning and workers, and develop, discuss and test succession plans. These plans need to take into account the absentee rates of 40 percent and include that rate for senior management and the head of the organization.
Development of a Continuation of Operations Plan (COOP)
It is important to plan for operations in the event of a pandemic flu. Interestingly, some of the same contingency issues can also be applied to any other issue that may stress a system. And once again these points can apply not only sectors you should be offering guidance to, but also your own department where appropriate, too.
- Identify essential and non-essential department functions and processes for your operation
- Identify positions required to complete essential functions
- Identify and assign key team leads and alternates
- Document processes and tasks that may need to be altered
- Identify staff that can be cross-trained to backfill critical functions
- Identify retirees, temporary employees or sub-contractors who could back up essential staff
- Identify critical functions that can be performed via telecommuting from home
- Establish shifts, longer hours of operations, alternate work days, etc.
- If necessary, develop plans to isolate and house staff in place to ensure critical functions continue
- Put a communications procedure in place to contact staff at home
- Identify methods to limit frequency and type of face-to-face contact (hand-shaking, seating in meetings, shared workstations, office layout, etc.) among employees and between employees and customers
- Identify personal protective equipment needs (masks, gloves, anti-bacterial soap)
To sum up, now is the time to begin the education process among the different sectors of critical infrastructure in your community.
It is never too early to begin the planning for a pandemic flu. In fact, it is our job to prepare and develop contingency plans in the event a disaster occurs. In a world that changes daily, being a proactive organization is part of the job.