Taking a Team Approach to Your Digital and Communications Strategy: Cdc's Response to the Outbreak of Fungal Meningitis and Other Infections

Background: The outbreak of fungal meningitis and other infections, beginning in 2012, is considered one of the largest healthcare associated outbreaks in U.S. history.  CDC, working closely with state, local, and federal counterparts, established a model platform for crisis communications.

Program background:  The 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis and other infections presented several new risk communication challenges in spite of significant CDC experience in patient notifications.  This was the first notification with such wide geographic spread (23 states) and was complicated by the rare form of fungal meningitis and severity of illness in the first meningitis patients.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  CDC’s communications strategy derived from prior outbreak experience, including competency in risk communications, existing websites, and established protocols.  The strategy focused on getting ahead of requests and alleviating patients’ fears and questions about their risk of exposure to a rare and serious fungal infection. CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center and Joint Information Center for the first 35 days of the response to help coordinate communications to healthcare providers, patients, policymakers, and the media.  Roles and responsibilities included patient and physician communication; translation of complex science;  interagency, state, and local coordination; media relations, website and social media development and daily updates. All public materials were co-developed and cleared by scientific staff, policy leads, and communications professionals. CDC’s communication responders also worked to establish consistency in delivery of web information. Messages were cleared through multiple channels and evaluated to ensure the intended audience was successfully reached. Media was given ready access to scientists and CDC facilities.  Web updates were provided daily at the same time and set the pace for the media cycle. The fast and changing pace of the outbreak and the extreme interest from the public and the media demanded a consistent, reliable,  and regularly updated source of information. A dedicated website for the outbreak, including a map of healthcare facilities that had received the contaminated medications, was the first product developed.  Immediately, CDC’s web site became that place for many who were seeking information, garnering more than 1 million hits between October 5 and November 7, 2012.  CDC’s website was cited by PR Dailyand others as “basically an outline of best practices for any response site.”  CDC’s clearance channels, activated in the early part of the outbreak, continue to ensure that science, communication, and policy staff are in agreement about any release of information before it happens.

Conclusions:  CDC’s response to the multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis and other infections can serve as a model for other large-scale and scientifically complex patient notification efforts.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Given the growing interest from media around outbreaks and the consequent need for healthcare transparency, patient notifications are likely to increase in coming years.  Recent successes in large-scale patient notifications of scientifically complex information can serve as a model for best practices in future notification events. This trend will require greater communications expertise, including risk communications, and strategies for translating information for multiple audiences quickly and accurately.