Fall, Flu and You!
By Mountain-Pacific
Fall means back to school, warm days and crisp evenings. Fall also brings us flu season.
Mountain-Pacific Quality Health is pleased to provide FREE resources to support flu season educational needs. Click on this link http://www.mpqhf.org/QIO/quality-improvement-tools-resources/preventive-health-tools-resources/ to order posters, reminder postcards and immunization records for your patients. Check them out and get your orders in now!
We are interested in sharing best practices for facilities looking to increase their health care worker immunization rates. Do you have a best practice to share? Do you have a specific issue you need advice on? Please send your best solutions and any pesky issues to Amber Rogers at arogers@mpqhf.org. We will incorporate your comments or questions into our next webinar on this topic.
Have immunization questions? Here are some quick answers:
Q: Has the influenza vaccine information statement (VIS) changed for the 2017-2018 flu season?
A: No! Feel free to use up your old copies.
Q: When testing employees or patients for influenza, is there a time period after receiving the vaccine that a nasal swab can give a false positive?
A: Inactivated influenza vaccines are not known to cause false positive tests. However, false positives are possible with rapid tests. Here is a link for more info: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/diagnosis/rapidlab.htm
Q: How many strains of flu are circulating this year?
To date, a total of 19 variant virus infections have been reported in the United States during 2017. Eighteen of these have been with H3N2v viruses (Texas [1], North Dakota [1], Pennsylvania [1] and Ohio [15]), and one has been with an H1N2v virus (Ohio). Two of the 19 infected people were hospitalized as a result of their illness. No deaths have occurred. All variant virus infections have been associated with swine exposure in fair settings, and no human-to-human transmission has been identified. To get weekly updates, this link may be helpful: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
Read more of Mountain-Pacific’s blogs to learn how to live a healthier life.
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