Your Role in Managing Our Influenza Surge

Across our communities and our healthcare system, we continue to experience a high volume of patients in our Emergency Departments, Urgent Care sites, clinics and hospitals with influenza-like symptoms.
We are managing resources—staff and supplies—and monitoring patient flow and bed capacity to ensure our ability to continue to care for patients who need us during this very active flu season.
We know many of you have gone the extra mile in response to high patient volumes over the past several weeks. Thank you for your contributions.
What you can do

For the protection of all of our patients and staff, follow these essential safety instructions:

  1. Stay home if you are sick. We are obligated to provide a safe environment for our patients, co-workers and ourselves, and that includes staying home from work if you are ill. If you develop a fever (temperature greater than 100 degrees) and respiratory symptoms, follow these guidelines:
  2. Employees who are free from fever for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen) and respiratory symptoms may return to work.
  3. Employees who work with patients in protective environments—blood andmarrow transplant, solid organ transplant, neonatal intensive care—should remain away from work forseven days from the onset of symptoms or resolution of symptoms, whichever is longer.

Please follow all call-in procedures and give as much notice as possible if you are having symptoms. Staffing offices will be asking employees to voluntarily report symptoms when calling in so we can track the incidence and impact of influenza in our workforce.

We ask for everyone’s patience and understanding, both with staff who are ill and need to stay home and with staff who need to find a way to cover these shifts.

Monitor visitors to our care settings, and enforce restrictions where applicable.

  • All of us should be proactive in approaching hospital visitors who may be ill, offering them masks and asking them to reconsider their visit.
  • Over the next several days, we will begin toactively screen visitors to our OB and newborn units for flu symptoms (e.g., fever, cough). Additional units/facilities may screen visitors or implement more restrictive visitor guidelines based on patient populations. If you are unsure of the current visitor policy in your area, please check with your supervisor or Infection Prevention.

Wear appropriate personal protective equipment. If you are caring for patients with suspected or confirmed influenza, wear a mask with shield unless you are performing an aerosol-producing procedure, such as a nebulizer treatment.

We continue to follow Minnesota Department of Health clinical guidance.

Courtesy of Fairview Health Systems