cohorting flu

Up2nogood RN, RN · Nov 10, 2009

Yes, my hospital opened up an inpatient unit 2 weeks ago along with a holding tank (tent LOL) outside the ED. I don't know what the census has been though.

WalkieTalkie, RN · Nov 10, 2009

Our plan is to also cohort these patients if the rooms are needed. It hasn't happened yet.

beachmom · Nov 11, 2009

Cohorting is in our written plan if single rooms are all full. So far it hasn't happened.

It takes days to get the H1N1 test back, so how do you know both patients have the same flu? If you put a seasonal flu pt. with a swine flu pt., they could potentially get both viruses at the same time. Wouldn't that make them even sicker?

indigo girl · Nov 11, 2009

Cohorting is in our written plan if single rooms are all full. So far it hasn't happened.
It takes days to get the H1N1 test back, so how do you know both patients have the same flu? If you put a seasonal flu pt. with a swine flu pt., they could potentially get both viruses at the same time. Wouldn't that make them even sicker?

Good points. You don't know if they have the same disease. This happened recently on our psych unit where true isolation is not possible. There were five patients with ILI. They were in 6 rooms. We cohorted because we had to take as many admissions as possible according to our manager, and needed to free up a room to do this. As it turns out, all tested negative for flu, but what they had we did not know. They had ILI, that's all I knew. One patient with a portacath, was positive for RSV which the lab tech noticed by PCR while looking for flu.

As for having more than one type of influenza at the same time, that actually is a concern, and might happen this winter. It is bad news if one is seasonal H1N1 and the other is swine flu. All seasonal H1N1 is resistant to Tamiflu. A co-infected host offers swine flu the opportunity to gain that characteristic as well.