31 Dec 09 19:11 | SuzanneMiron said...:
It is indicated that a third wave is coming in January/February. There has been a lot of illness in my community with this second wave, which actually seems like our first. There continues to be a lot of illness with pneumonia. We are not a largely populated community, so I am being hopeful that with the exposures and vaccinations, the next wave will not be as bad.

04 Jan 10 16:41 | AmyNichols said...:
We are anticipating a 3rd wave, monitoring federal, state, local reports of adult and pediatric influenza, ILI, pneumonia, as well as our own facility's experience. Our incident command remains established via weekly conf call to maintain readiness. Today's reports (reporting from November [EID], Dec 15 [CDC], Dec 31 [state]) seem to indicate a small increase in activity mid-to end of Dec. Hard to tell what will happen, just have to monitor and be ready to respond early.

04 Jan 10 17:35 | DavidWebb said...:
Historically pandemics have had waves but it is impossible to predict exactly what will happen. This is a great time to vaccinate everyone and fine tune your pandemic plan. Unfortunately some of the public seems less interested in the vaccine now that the last wave has passed. I would like to see public service announcements emphasizing the importance of vaccination even when cases are falling.

04 Jan 10 18:23 | SandyD said...:
I have sent out to all of our employees updates on the H1N1 and the expectation of a third wave coming more than likely this month, but, I continue to have a lack of employee participation in taking the H1N1 vaccine, any suggestions? I even had our Chief of Staff at our hospital send all employees a notice recommending the vaccine, still no improvements in increasing the response by our employees.

04 Jan 10 19:25 | ScottWilliams said...:
Improving health care personnel vaccination rates
Sandy -- not sure if this will be helpful to you, but the Joint Commission recently published a monograph on improving influenza vaccination rates. It is filled with examples, submitted by health care organizations, that describe the approaches they took to improve their health care personnel vaccination rates. It was developed to address seasonal flu, but I suspect that many of the examples would apply to H1N1 vaccination campaigns. The link to the monograph is here: http://www.jointcommission.org/PatientSafety/InfectionControl

05 Jan 10 15:56 | KathleenMartin said...:
I don't think we can definitively predict when or if a third wave will occur. Everyone MUST prepare for that possibility and not be lulled into a false sense of security that "it's over." It is not! The virus is still circulating globally. We continue to track it's course. History of other novel influenza pandemics (1918) show that a third wave (the worst) did occur in the spring following the fall/winter 2nd wave. If people don't follow appropriate precautions (handwashing, respiratory hygiene, isolation for ILI's, immunization, etc.) it makes it easier for the virus to spread and mutate. Be smart and stay on top of it.

05 Jan 10 17:16 | BrendaDeAmicis said...:
We have had visitor restrictions in effect for 2 months due to the first and second waves of H1N1. What are other health care organizations doing as far as keeping or cancelling visitor restrictions in light of the predicted third wave of H1N1 and also upcoming seasional influenza season?

05 Jan 10 20:58 | NancyKupka said...:
I talked with my friends at the CDC. It is possible there may be a third wave of H1N1 influenza illness but no one can predict if and when this may occur. As everyone is well aware, influenza is unpredictable. What CDC advises is that every effort be made to vaccinate as many people as possible with the H1N1 vaccine as there is ample supplies of the vaccine.

06 Jan 10 16:43 | RobinEbmeyer said...:
The third wave is based on previous pandemics. There are usually three waves and sometimes a fourth during a pandemic. The second wave is usually the worst. The third wave is suppose to peak during Jan/Feb. It could land on top of the regular seasonal flu peak which could cause another spike in flu like symptoms. We are encouraging all employees to receive the H1N1 vaccine and get the seasonal flu vaccine if they have not already received it to lessen perhaps the third wave.

06 Jan 10 16:48 | RobinEbmeyer said...:
We instituted a visitor restriction policy just before the second wave of pandemic. Once that wave came back to baseline numbers there was increasing pressure to lift the visitor restriction. This came more from our mother/baby unit than from other areas of the hospital. We did lift the restriction based on the fact that mom's were leaving the hospital much earlier than usual as they wanted their families to be involved with the new born. We did not lift the restriction for the adult ICUs and there has not been a problem with that population.

21 Jan 10 15:08 | GarySmith said...:
Our hospital has been planning for H1N1 since early August after experiencing a mild hit in the spring of 2009. A multi-disciplinary steering committee was formed that met weekly to address areas such as patient surge, staff vaccination, infection control, education and communication, employee relations and labor relations. Sub groups met to address these individual topics and identify gaps/formulate response plans for reporting back to the Steering Committee. The most significant challenges that were met successfully were staff vaccination and a 3 week surge of ILI patients into the Emergency Department and Hospital at the end of October and early November. Recently our hospital ended the visitor restrictions policy due to flu after 3 months of implementation. This planning approach will assist us moving forward with a 3rd wave should it occur and also with our response to flu season later on in 2010. Our committee which continues to meet every 2 weeks will be concentrating on best work practices that have been employed and also to correct any areas that did not work so well during this last wave.

22 Jan 10 14:45 | NancyKupka said...:
Gary, is there anything in retrospect you would have done differently?