14 INFECTIOUS DISEASE, DISASTER PLANNING & WOUND CARE | 2019 | www.elitecme.com P erhaps the saga of the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act best illustrates Americans’ approach toward pandemic-level outbreaks of illness or disease. On October 5, 2005, in response to a grow- ing threat of avian influenza or bird flu (and with Hurricane Katrina’s crippling effect on New Orleans still fresh in everyone’s mind), six United States senators, including now-for- mer President Barack Obama, introduced the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act. Among other considerations, the bill called for: • Finalizing and implementing pandemic response plans, • Improvingsurveillanceandinternationalpart- nershipstomonitorthespreadofavianflu, • Protecting Americans by devoting greater resources toward the development of a vaccine The bill wasn’t controversial; it was an idea that was pretty straightforward and easy to support regardless of political affiliation. Yet it never became law. Why? The easiest explana- tion is that once the initial scare over avian flu died down, and the CDC and others were able to control the outbreak, the potential law, like the flu itself, was largely forgotten. At the end of that session of Congress, the proposed bill was stricken from the books. Years later, the Pandemics and All-Hazards Preparedness Act would become law and offer U.S. citizens a measure of protection against similar emergencies. But all too often, the aforementioned scenario occurs—a tempo- rary outbreak of disease causes momentary panic, and is quickly forgotten when the initial threat is quelled. For example, believe it or not, we are closing in on the five-year anniversary of the Ebola scare that gripped the nation for much of October 2014. But we’ve heard very little about the disease since that time. PANDEMIC FAQ A pandemic is an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. When it comes to prepara- tion, it’s safe to change the last part of that definition to “with the ability to affect an exceptionally high proportion of the pop- ulation.” The idea, after all, is to stop the condition from reaching pandemic levels. Along those lines, ‘pandemic plans’ have gained popularity in recent years, as compa- nies and organizations outline the means by which they will attempt to conduct “business as usual” in the case of a pandemic. These plans largely depend upon developing a sys- tem for managing daily necessities during a sustained period of employee absences, while also minimizing the risk for conta- gious employees spreading germs to their co-workers. But that’s not all. There are so many other factors to consider, particularly in a health- care-based setting where it’s reasonable to assume that at least some of your employ- ees’ daily activities will involve treating and ISTOCK PREPAREDNESS  | Pandemic Preparedness How your facility or organization can get ready for the next health crisis By Rob Senior