How Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania is Preparing for Swine Flu

H1N1 Influenza is in Phase 6 Pandemic (since earlier this year) and is likely to become more severe in the coming months. My employer, Geisinger Health System, has been responding to swine flu in many ways. Postings on the company and employee websites, hanging posters throughout all of their facilities, and sending mailers to its employees, educating them on symptoms (fever of 100 or more, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue) and steps to take to prevent the spread of swine flu (cover coughs/sneezes, wash hands frequently, prevent germs from spreading by not touching your face, and stay at home if you are ill). Volunteers will be placed at Geisinger Wyoming Valley entrances to inform visitors of hand sanitizers, tissue locations and requests to "cover coughs and sneezes."

Healthcare workers will be first in line for the H1N1 vaccine. Geisinger has an ongoing triage and isolation of patients exhibiting H1N1 flu like symptoms that are seen in the emergency department, community practice or hospital outpatient clinics and contact/droplet precautions will be strictly followed. This is important to keep healthcare workers and patients from being exposed to the swine flu.

In-patients are the first priority for anti-viral treatment, followed by patients at higher risk for swine flu, in this order: children under 5, adults 65 and older, children at risk for Reye Syndrome, pregnant women, those with serious chronic illnesses/disorders or immonosupression, nursing home or other chronic care facility residents.

Geisinger Health System will be a distribution point for approximately 300,000 doses of swine flu vaccine in the next few months. Safety is not thought to be an issue since the exact same process that has been used in the past to make flu vaccines will be used but this vaccine will target the H1N1 strain. The primary targets are going to be: health care workers who have direct patient contact; school age children, pregnant women. As opposed to the regular flu vaccine, the people who are 65 and over are going to be the last group to be immunized because it appears they have some degree of immunity from an influenza outbreak that occurred in the fifty's making them less likely to develop more severe complications of the swine flu.