A Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services employee is the October State Employee of the Month.
Nathan Koffarnus works at the Bureau of Communicable Disease and Prevention in Springfield and was nominated for his work in addressing issues in the wake of the Zika virus outbreak.
His supervisors said Koffarnus helped develop and implement a process to ensure Missouri residents had access to Zika testing at the State Health Lab in Jefferson City when deemed appropriate and in accordance with national guidelines.
A primary component of the testing process is prior approval from a BCDCP epidemiologist must be acquired before a medical provider can submit specimens for testing to the lab.
Koffarnus' supervisors said he recognized there would be times when epidemiologists in other districts might not be available to respond immediately to a medical provider's call in their jurisdiction, so he volunteered to be available anytime a call for testing was received. He became the "go-to" epidemiologist to assist in conducting screenings.
He also found forms were not electronically fillable and could be prone to transcription errors, so he volunteered to create a continually updated fillable version of these forms used to conduct Zika investigations.
Senior Epidemiology Specialist Douglas Baker, who nominated Koffarnus for the award, said more than 550 people in Missouri have been screened and approved for testing at the state lab, while many more have been screened and denied testing.
"Nathan single-handedly approved approximately 20 percent of all those being tested for Zika at the state lab," Baker said. "The extra time and effort he spent in support of his colleagues to field calls outside the district he covers, as well as continually working on the development and maintenance of forms is difficult to measure, though it is without question substantial."