Naval Hospital Bremerton Conducts Influenza Vaccination Exercise

By Douglas H Stutz, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB)partnered with Naval Base Kitsap (NBK) and local tenant commands to administer a mass influenza vaccination during a shot exercise (SHOTEX) Sept 13 and 14.

The two-day SHOTEX was for all shore-based active duty service members, along with activated Reservists, and critical civilian personnel such as health care workers, federal fire department, Department of Defense police and base security personnel.

NHB is one of two military treatment facilities selected to participate in the exercise. The other is Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.

"This is a great opportunity for us and one we are capable and able to handle with our team of experts," said Capt. Mark E. Brouker, NHB commanding officer. "It might sound dramatic, but an exercise like this has really never been done before. This is uncharted waters, but we have the right personnel who have done a lot of planning and coordination to make this happen the right way."

According to Capt. Dan Frederick, NHB population health officer, the influenza vaccination exercise tested the ability of NHB to rapidly vaccinate active duty in the event of a mass inoculation scenario, as well as have shore-based commands effectively track their personnel.

"Commander Naval Installations Command tasked Naval Base Kitsap to execute our mass vaccination response plan to accomplish the goals," said Frederick. "The exercise really gave us a great opportunity to administer a mass vaccination to our active duty population, similar to what we did during last year's overlapping H1N1 and seasonal flu seasons. This year however, we worked with all the local commands to ensure that they properly tracked their vaccinated personnel using the Navy Family Accountability and Assessment System (NFAAS)."

NFAAS is a standardized Navy method to account, manage, and monitor the recovery process for personnel and their families affected and/or scattered by a wide-spread catastrophic event.

"Using the NFAAS data and information system to administratively document who has been vaccinated was part of the overall challenge to see if the shore based commands could get all their active duty personnel's immunization status entered into NFAAS within 48 hours at the three selected sites," said Frederick.

The three sites were located on Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton, NBK Bangor, and NHB and handled approximately 5,000 personnel. Operational forces such as those assigned to ships, submarines and squadrons will hold their own vaccination evolutions.

"Coordination with Naval Hospital Bremerton in the lead, and the many tenant commands at Naval Base Kitsap Bangor and Bremerton in support was excellent," said Brian Edsinger, NBK emergency manager. "This was an early morning, cold start exercise and it went very well. Base-wide support for NHB was the key to success for this exercise. Our goal was to have this exercise as realistic as possible."

Frederick said the overall communication and coordination was enhanced by having all the local commands providing the organizational and logistical support necessary to document the vaccination into NFAAS.

The sites used an assembly line approach to streamline the personnel through, emphasizing everyone to initially fill out the required 'adult screening and immunization document' form and then moving on getting their vaccine.

"This was an excellent team exercise that validated our ability to react to a short notice, manpower intensive operational requirement," said Cmdr. James Travers, NBK executive officer and emergency operation center incident commander for the exercise. "Naval Hospital Bremerton provided critical staffing support and NBK provided command and control support between tenant commands and NHB that ensured success of this massive exercise in a very small execution window."

There were four graduate students from the Georgia Institute of Technology on hand from a grant by Defense Threat Reduction Agency for empirical evidence gathering to observe, track and note the entire process from collecting data to administering shots.

"They're doing a time-motion study analysis," said Capt. Fred Landro, NHB branch clinics director. "We're not concerned with how fast we keep the line moving as much as how efficient we are with our continued health care needs in regards to handling a mass vaccination."

Naval Hospital Bremerton continues to advocate and follow the Center for Disease Control recommendation of "Following the Four C's": clean hands frequently (wash with soap and water and/or use hand sanitizer); cover your cough (use your arm or tissue, not your hand); confine yourself (stay at home if you are sick); and avoid crowds when flu is in the community (decrease your risk by increasing your distance of three feet or more from others). These are considered to be great habits that slow the spread of flu.

This year's seasonal flu vaccine includes H1N1, so only one vaccination is needed unlike last year's situation which required two. Additionally, all eligible beneficiaries are continually encouraged to keep their shot record and their immunizations up to date to help provide maximum protection against vaccine preventable diseases.