Moderator

Good afternoon. This is reporter Mike Belt, and I’ll be your moderator. We are going to chat with Dan Partridge, the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department’s CEO. Welcome Dan.

Dan Partridge

Thank you Mike it’s good to be here.

Moderator

Let’s go ahead and get started. Here is the first question.

msikes

When I lived in Kentucky restaurants and others had to display their letter rating- A, B, C on their door. My family found this helpful to see how businesses were doing with their evaluations. Is there a system such as this in Lawrence or Kansas? If not how can places be held accountable pubicly?

Dan Partridge

There is no similar system in Kansas although it was discussed many years ago. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has on their website a site that you can use to query and find out the inspection history for any restaurant in Kansas.

las083

How often are inspections conducted and how thorough are they?

Dan Partridge

Regular inspections are conducted at least annually. Complaint inspections are completed within 1 day if a foodborne illness is suspected or 3 days otherwise. If an inspection finds multiple or serious violations follow-up inspections are conducted to monitor correction and compliance.

Dan Partridge

Part 2 (I forgot to answer the second part of your question). Inspections look at all facets of the operation that can contribute to the growth or introduction of bacteria. virus or other contaminants. We look at food storage, cooking and holding temperatures, employee hygiene, and cleanliness of the facility.

geekin_topekan

Are there any kitchens in the City of lawrence that have never been inspected?How long has it been since Douglas County has had regular inspections of local kitchens?

Dan Partridge

Prior to the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Dept. taking on inspections the State Health Dept. conducted them here. So they have always been inspected. If we know of a facility that is operating we are inspecting them.

ChristineMetz

If we want to know how our favorite restaurants do on health inspections, where do we go to find out? And is there ever any follow-up done on if these restaurants fix the problem?

Moderator

The web site for restaurant inspections is:
http://www.ksfoodsafety.org/

Dan Partridge

We make a strong effort to correct all violations before we leave. Uncorrected violations that are considered critical to health are given a timeframe to come into compliance and a follow up inspection is conducted.

You can find out about your favorite restaurant by going to the KDHE website. A link has been posted on this chat page.

las083

Are there different standards for different types of restaurants, i.e. fast food, sit down, micro-breweries?

Dan Partridge

No, there is one food code that applies to all facilities. However, each restaurant’s menu is different and therefore each restaurant has their own individual challenges and requirements (i.e. a snow cone trailer has different processes and requirements than a full service restaurant.

Byrne

Where do you and your family go when dining out? Is there anywhere you’d never go even if someone else were footing the bill?

Dan Partridge

If I like the food I go. Every restaurant has to be vigilant about food safety. I like mexican so I tend to go to mexican restaurants. I don’t know of anyplace I would not go in Douglas County.

jkealing

If a friend and I both got what seems like food poisoning from eating the same thing at a local fast food chain, what should we do?

Dan Partridge

Call the Health Dept. at 843-3060 and ask to speak to a communicable disease nurse. They will take down your information and contact our inspectors.

bwilson

How often do multiple or serious violations occur, and is there enough staff to make sure everyone’s inspected?

Dan Partridge

Serious violations are tracked and our average for May (our first month of doing inspections) was approx. 0.75 serious violations per inspection.

We have two inspectors that inspect approx 430 restaurants. This is within the federal and state standard for inspector to facility ratio and we conduct approximately 80 inspections per month.

lastcall4oh

Dan,

First off, glad to see you in the land of the Crimson and the Blue.
What impact do you see from the transition of the food safety program to Kansas Dept. of Agriculture? Will KDA continue to contract with counties to provide food service inspections?

Dan Partridge

Thank you for the welcome. KDA will have a transition period that is unavoidable. KDHE staff will transfer to KDA so the expertise in place at KDHE wont be lost. However, every organization does things a little different so everyone is learning to adjust. I thing the impact to the public will be minimal. KDA has informed us that they will continue to contract with local counties. Currently 7 or 8 local health departments have contracts.

ctrowbridge

How concerned is the local health department about insect-borne diseases such as West Nile Virus? Could that be a problem this year?

Dan Partridge

We have sent out multiple press releases and notices to area physicians this spring and summer about vector-borne diseases. These have focused primarily on tick-borne illnesses as west nile virus is a late summer disease due to the life cycle of the mosquitos responsible for transmission. We work to provide information to the public on how we all can reduce our exposure risk and identify early signs and symptoms. West nile virus could be a problem but I don’t know that any surveillance data has been released yet to indicate that it will be.

Moderator

Dan, earlier this year the health department, with help from other city and county departments, conducted a drill concerning an anthrax outbreak. What did you learn from that and will there be more such drills in the future?

Dan Partridge

Yes we will continue to drill and excercise our plan. We conducted a drill this spring at the fairgrounds and learned that:

We can improve our medical review form so that we can accomplish this task more efficiently
We need to continue to meet with our partners and practice our response roles jointly so that we get a better feel for each other.
More signs and better clinic flow is needed.

livetocook

What is the maximum number of critical violations a restaurant can receive before a re-inspection will occur?

Dan Partridge

There is no maximum or minimum. We will ask a facility to close with one violation if this violation poses an immediate health hazard such as no hot water or a sewage backup. A restaurant could also have several violations and if they are not corrected during the inspection there is a very high probability that we will be back out.

Moderator

That is the last of our questions. Thanks to all who sent them. Dan, we thank you for joining us. Come back some time.

Dan Partridge

I appreciate the opportunity to field questions as I believe we should all know more about what public health does. Thanks to all who posted questions.