How to report a foodborne illness

We encourage all members of the public, including food service employees, to report suspected or possible foodborne illness so we can continue working with our food service operators to improve food safety in Snohomish County.

The Snohomish County Health Department has recently launched a new phone line and email inbox specifically dedicated to receiving foodborne illness reports. Anyone can report a foodborne illness directly to the Snohomish County Health Department by the two following methods:

Leave a voicemail at the Snohomish County Health Department Food Illness reporting line at 425-339-8680
Email SHD-FoodIllnessComplaints@snoco.org.

A member of our staff will follow up on all foodborne illness reports and contact the person who submitted the report by phone or email to gather more details and form a response plan, if needed.

There will soon also be a third method for reporting. The Washington State Department of Health is launching a new system to capture foodborne illness and food safety reports from residents across the state of Washington, via an online questionnaire. This new system is called the Foodborne Illness Notification System (FINS).

FINS will be an important tool for easier reporting for the public, timely detection and response to outbreaks, timely correction of illness risk factors, and easier evaluation of statewide trends and burden of foodborne illness. Reports that come in through FINS will be automatically forwarded to us at the Snohomish County Health Department based on the facility’s zip code. Our staff will follow up on these reports with the same process we use for reports that come to us directly via our foodborne illness phone line or email. FINS is currently set to go live to the public by May 2024.

handwashing, Taking temps, storage, wearing gloves

What to Expect During an Illness Investigation

As mentioned above, the Snohomish County Health Department receives foodborne illness notifications and complaints from the public. But what does that mean for the establishment that is suspected of causing the illness? Once we have gathered more information from that notification, we determine if the illness is something that could have been caused by a food service establishment. We also keep track of all the notifications to see if there is a pattern. If we get several notifications for the same establishment or several notifications for different establishments, but the symptoms or foods that are brought up are the same, we may start an illness investigation.

The illness investigation usually involves multiple inspectors who both inspect for the illness and perform a routine inspection. They will be looking for contributing factors that might have led to the illness reported. If they suspect a food, they might take samples of it to send to labs for testing. They will create food flows, which help them answer questions like:

What is the process for making that food from receiving to serving?
Who made what, when, and where?
Where do the food products come from?

The inspectors will request documentation from the person in charge (PIC). This can include illness logs, shift schedules, delivery invoices, recipes, and potentially customer information.

This illness investigation may take place during one visit, but often multiple visits are required to fully address the outbreak as more information is received from the public or even lab testing. If contributing factors can be identified, the inspector will recommend or require certain control factors. This might include restricting or excluding food workers, modifying procedures, requiring training, cleaning, sanitizing, or closure. Foodborne illness data is reported annually to the Washington State Department of Health and the CDC. This data is used to understand how and why the outbreak occurred and to aid in future prevention of foodborne illness outbreaks.

VERIFIABLE ILLNESS TRAINING

The new food code (section 02205) requires establishments to provide each food worker the information below in a way that can be verified. This training will only need to be provided once, but the Person in Charge must be able to prove that every food worker has received this information.

Food workers must inform the Person in Charge if they have: Diarrhea, vomiting, sore throat with fever, jaundice, a lesion on hand or wrist containing pus or an infected wound on hand or wrist that is open and draining.

Food workers must inform the Person in Charge if they are diagnosed with: Norovirus, Hepatitis A virus, Shigella, Shiga-toxin producing E. coli, Salmonella Typhi (typhoid fever), Salmonella (non-typhoidal).

Some examples of verifiable methods:

Keeping a signed statement for each employee stating they have been made aware of this requirement. We recommend storing this signed statement with the employee’s Food Worker Card.
Clearly posting the information in the employees work area or break room, with a sign-off sheet that employees sign once they have gone through it.
Creating a curriculum and keeping a roster of the employees that attend or go through that training. This information can be electronically stored. If it is, the field inspector will be asking to see this information in the computer to verify compliance.

The Snohomish County Health Department has created Restriction and Notification of Ill Food Workers posters and employee signature handouts to help you meet this requirement in a verifiable way. They are all located on our Educational Resources page.

Vomit and diarrhea clean up plan

Establishments must have written procedures for employees to follow when responding to events that involve the discharge of vomit or fecal matter onto surfaces in the food establishment. The procedures must include specific actions employees must take to clean and sanitize the area to:

Minimize vomit and fecal matter exposure to employees and customers.
Minimize the contamination of food and surfaces.

The Washington Department of Health has created an AMC Toolkit - Vomit and Diarrhea Clean-up Plan template as an option for establishments to use when creating their written procedures. Employees must be trained so that they understand these written procedures. The plan should be specific to each facility, but must include the following information:

Quickly remove the ill person from the area.
Block off and clean the affected area. Other staff and customers must be 25 ft. away from the contaminated area.
Have available and use proper personal protective equipment like gloves and masks.
Use an approved disinfectant that will be effective against Norovirus (read the label).
Clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces. Norovirus contaminated materials should not be cleaned in the kitchen.
Procedures for disposal or disinfection of tools/equipment used for cleanup.
Dispose of any food that may have been directly or indirectly exposed.
Employee must change outer clothes after cleaning up the mess.
Watch for symptoms of illness after cleanup for at least 24 hours. Norovirus can be airborne and is very contagious.

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