Preparing public health nurses for pandemic influenza through distance learning.

As a global influenza pandemic appears imminent with the spread of avian influenza, the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) and the California Distance Learning Health Network (CDLHN) presented a live 90-min satellite broadcast and subsequent 2-hr small group problem-solving tabletop exercise to practice interventions needed to minimize the consequences of a pandemic event. Public health nurses (PHNs), managers, and other staff in laboratories, clinical care, veterinary medicine, environmental health, public information and safety, emergency management, and transportation down linked the program, broadcast by satellite from the CDHS Richmond Laboratory Campus, to view on-site locally. PHNs represented the professional category with the highest number of participants for those conducting the program outside of California.