# 2107
Finding, and refining, new solutions for unique problems is one of the goals of a pandemic drill. You don't know if something that looks good on paper will work until you test it.
Laurel, Maryland officials tried out a unique way of monitoring households affected by pandemic flu in a drill held on the 18th of June.
Instead of knocking on every door, or relying on telecommunications that might be down, officials distributed hundreds of placards to households to display on their front door or window.
Residents could display the number of ill in a household, along with the total number of inhabitants.
Monitoring crews, equipped with wireless PDA's and binoculars, drove the neighborhoods and entered in the information which was used to print Rx labels for needed medications.
While perhaps not appropriate for all neighborhoods (apartment buildings would be problematic, I should think), this sort of approach would seem to eliminate some of the dangers, and bottlenecks, of approaching each household individually.
The State's office of Preparedness and Response will analyze reports from this drill over the next 60 days to determine how effective, and practical, this approach is.
This from Gazette.net.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Pandemic flu drill tests city’s readiness
Lessons from ‘very important’ excercise could be applied to other disasters
by Elahe Izadi | Staff Writer
A pandemic flu has hit hundreds of homes in Laurel, forcing families to stay indoors and quarantine themselves. That was the scenario on June 18 when police officers, city officials and about 85 volunteers participated in the city’s pandemic flu drill. The drill, which tested Laurel’s ability to respond to such an emergency, was part of statewide drill of responding to a 5- to 12-week-old pandemic flu epidemic.
The group was briefed in the Laurel City Council Chambers before heading out in police cars, armed with electronic devices and bright yellow vests. Their mission was to identify residents with a highly infectious influenza strain and get them the medications they need before the flu spread any more.
The city sent placards to 800 homes in three neighborhoods - Ashford, Laurel Hills and section one of the Villages at Wellington. About 300 homes participated, a larger-than-anticipated turnout, Flemion said.
Residents randomly chose to display placards that either said they were infected or not infected. Infected homes also listed the number of residents and who was sick.
Volunteers in police cars used binoculars to read the information, which they marked down in a Juno, a personal digital assistant. The Internet-capable device instantly transmitted the information to Information Technology professionals back at the emergency center set up at the Laurel Armory, who printed medication labels for infected residents. A point of distribution was then set up for infected residents to pick up medication.
Before, the process of documentation was all done by hand with paper that had to be taken back to the emergency operations center, Flemion said.
(Cont.)
