When flu season arrives, it’s important to stay well. As a matter of patient and workplace safety and professional pride, we can take steps to protect ourselves, our families, co-workers, and members and patients from flu and other infectious diseases. Here’s how. 

Vaccinate yourself and others

• If you don’t get the flu, you won’t pass it on. The vaccine reduces the chance you will get the flu. Encourage others to get vaccinated, too.

Keep flu out of the air

• Limit the time patients with suspected flu spend in open waiting rooms; separate them from others.
• Offer surgical masks to people who are coughing or sneezing and encourage them to cover their coughs. Supply tissues, trash cans and hand sanitizer in waiting areas.
• Place patients with flu in a private room.
• Avoid unnecessary transport of infectious patients — and have them wear surgical masks outside their rooms.

Keep flu off of yourself. Follow standard and droplet precautions

• Wear eye protection, gown and gloves.
• Wear respiratory protection when in the room with the patient and until the air has cleared after the patient has left the room (about one hour), or if you are doing procedures that may aerosolize infectious particles.
• Wash your hands often. Use hand sanitizer or wash with soap and water before and after all patient care.
• Avoid touching your face, clothing or mask with your hands.

Keep the environment clean

• Focus cleaning on high-contact surfaces: door knobs, elevator buttons, reception desks, exam tables, pharmacy furniture. 

Keeping the affordability point on the Value Compass in mind, unit-based teams are taking a hard look at the obstacles to collecting copayments and conducting small tests of change around proposed improvements. New practices like these are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in new revenue.

1. Educate employees about the importance of copay collection.
2. Train employees in how to ask for payment. Use role playing to help them become more comfortable with asking for payments, and create and distribute talking points or scripts.
3. Provide visual reminders for members to check in at the front desk, so a receptionist can determine if a copayment is due.
4. Post a sign with a telephone number directing patients with questions about co-payments and financial concerns to a financial counselor.
5. Call patients a week in advance of a scheduled procedure to advise them a copay will be due and, if possible, to collect it before they are admitted.
6. Add the copayment amount to patient’s outstanding balance and ask for the total amount. If balance is $100 or more, ask for payment on the account.
7. Refer patients who can’t afford to pay to facility-based financial counselors.
8. Station a full-time financial counselor in the Emergency Department.
9. Make sure financial aid applications are processed promptly by having co-workers share the load. Report workload status at weekly huddles.
10. Create a uniform note-taking system for financial forms and assign a counselor to every patient referred to financial services.

Unit-based teams encourage employees to make wise use of the National Agreement's sick-leave provisions, which help ensure that individuals have income in the event of a long-term illness or disability. Absences can also create hardship on other employees and affect member service and care. Here are some tips for improving attendance in your department: 

1. Survey your unit or department to determine if there’s confusion about the use of sick time. If needed, find ways to educate staff on sick leave, tardiness and clocking in and out.
2. Create an “attendance star” board to recognize staff members with great attendance.
3. Encourage colleagues to schedule routine appointments during off-hours or in conjunction with lunch or breaks when possible.
4. Track call-outs and use anonymous surveys to test for reasons why they are occurring.
5. Use cause-and-effect tools such as fishbone diagrams to address unforeseen circumstances, morale, physical environment, workload or personal reasons.
6. Engage staff with frequent conversations and be alert for — and respond to — indications of unhappiness or tension.
7. Recruit an attendance champion to be on the lookout for opportunities to coach others on the importance of banking sick leave.
8. Help employees track sick-leave usage by printing out and distributing the attendance calendar.
9. Use the attendance scorecard to learn about the six essentials of good attendance and to see how your team rates. Then  develop small tests of change to address the weak spots identified by the scorecard.