H1N1 planning: Know when to open your emergency operations center

As hospitals gear up for what could be the biggest influenza pandemic in a century, they must determine at what point a spike in flu cases warrants opening their emergency operations centers.

With emergency operations center decisions, one approach is to look at census figures from one year ago to date as a baseline, and then choose a point when emergency plans need to rev up. For example, you might determine that during flu season, your emergency operations center needs to activate when you’ve reached 110% of your patient census from a year ago.