Buncombe County Government, NC Behind the Scenes, 2 Dec 2011

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From YouTube: A Day in the Life :: Environmental Health

Description

If you've ever asked yourself what the government does for you -- walk in their shoes with our 'A Day in the Life' series. From Social Services, to the Department of Health, to the Sheriff's Office and more. Everyday, county employees work hard to make life in Buncombe County better for it's citizens.

In this episode, follow along with the Buncombe County Department of Health's Environmental Health Food Safety Division. Learn about how these unsung heroes of health work hard to make sure everything from the food you eat to the pool you swim in is safe. We'll follow along with David Mease as he conducts a restaurant inspection, learn about great programs such as the ServSafe class, and even go to the fair with Chris Ernst for information on how the Environmental Health Division keeps all the food you eat safe.

For more information about anything in this video or for all of the Environmental Health Services responsibilities, check out buncombecounty.org/health.

Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all of our latest news & videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/bcgovtv.
For more information about Buncombe County Government, visit http://www.buncombecounty.org/.

A

The Environmental Health Division of the Buncombe County Department of Health is responsible for enforcing North Carolina's laws regarding health and environmental protection. That sentence may sound nonspecific and there's a reason for that. The Environmental, Health Division implements and upholds health and safety standards throughout the county. In many, many ways want to go out to eat and make sure the restaurant takes food and safety precautions. How about making sure the local pool you swim in is safe or that the daycare where your child goes is clean from restaurant inspections.

A

Motels food stands daycare centers pools to even tattoo parlors the Environmental Health Division of the Buncombe County Department of Health works hard. So you don't have to think about these things throughout this video. We're going to focus on teaching you about how the Environmental Health Division keeps the food you eat safe in Buncombe, County we're going to follow.

A

David, nice, as he goes on a restaurant inspection head to our fairgrounds, to learn about what measures are taken to assure proper food handling and we'll learn all about the serve safe class, where our local restaurants learn about the best methods of food safety. All of this, and more as you follow along on the day in the life of a Buncombe, County environmental health, employee.

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We're tasked with protecting the public from unsafe food sources to prevent disease outbreaks that are associated with food. You know we we focus on just conducting routine inspections to make sure the sanitation inspections are in accordance with our rules. We're actually called the unseen miracle. If we do our job most people don't even know that we exist we're actually out there every day, inspecting to make sure that food is served safely, that food is from an approved source and we have most.

B

People may not even realize what we do, but there are very you know, realistic reasons why we're out there. We want to make sure that one food is from an approved source, and that means food is from a source that is inspected and it is in compliance with local state and federal laws. Obviously we don't want someone preparing food at home and bringing it into a restaurant to serve to the public. We actually focus on employee health, employee hygiene practices to make sure that seek employees are not working.

B

Obviously, food service employees are not like you and I. We have sick days. If we're sick, we can stay home and still get paid, but food service employees. Typically, they have to pay the bills and they're actually working trying to work when they're sick. When they shouldn't be there.

B

We make sure that equipment is clean, that it's sanitized so that you don't have food being processed on a contaminated equipment, we're there to ensure that food is stored properly, so that you don't have cross-contamination between raw foods and foods that are precooked ready-to-eat and also to prevent time and temperature abuse of food which can allow bacteria to grow and make food. And so a typical day is environmental health specialists report to the office to return phone calls enter any data into our database, that's related to inspections.

B

Then they go out into the field and conduct routine sanitation inspections. All of our sanitation inspections are unannounced. We do have days that are non-typical. If we have to respond to a suspected foodborne outbreak, we actually respond to complaints. If it's, you know things that we do during the day, we really don't know so any every day is different to.

A

Keep restaurant food safe, the environmental health office follow specific guidelines when it comes to restaurant inspections. Now we are going to follow David Meese as he takes us on a typical inspection at the Jackson underground cafe in downtown Asheville. The.

B

First thing we always do is wash your hands when we come in. We always check the hand-washing lavatory to make sure that it's supplied with a soap and towels we're going to just start. In a circular motion, we take utensils to make sure that they're free of any food deposits and to make sure that they're, clean and dry.

B

We always check the slicers to make sure that they're, clean and free of any accumulated food debris when we're checking food temperatures were what we're looking for in our holding units is to make sure that hot food is held at 135 degrees or above we always sanitize our probe with alcohol swab before we insert it into the food okay. This is a cold holding unit here.

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What we're looking for is any potentially hazardous foods here, such as cheese's or meats or held at forty-five or below, and these have probably just been sliced so they're in the process of cooling down food is allowed to be out of temperature. During preparation, see they have food properly covered. What we're looking on here on these units is we live to make sure that the door gaskets are cleaning in good repair. We don't want any torn or missing door gaskets, because that allows refrigeration the refrigerated area to leak out.

B

So what we're looking for here is to make sure that the food is stored correctly. You want to have your raw meats stored below anything. This precooked ready. We look to make sure that they have a thermometer in the unit check. These are cleaning and good repair. We also look at non food contact surfaces shelving the inside of refrigeration units here and over here in refrigeration check to make sure that food is frozen and again we're looking at condition of door. Gaskets inside of the refrigeration units are cleaned.

B

Here we have the refrigeration, the temperatures forty degrees, sometimes we'll. Take a thermometer here, put it between to the temperature we're looking for is forty five or below, and you can see here the proper storage of food they have vegetables on top, then they have their meats any if they had any the wrong shell. Eggs are stored on the bottom, which everything is stored correctly and they have their sliced bacon, which is uncooked stored on the bottom. Here we have the ice machine.

B

We always check these to make sure that they're clean. We check to make sure that the ice machines are free of any mould on the inside, and here they have the ice scoop it's stored in a holder so that there's no one reaching into the ice trying to find a scoop. That's covered nice buried in the ice. You don't want that, but a lot of people forget to that ice is food. So you want to treat this just as a food source on there miscellaneous utensil drawer.

B

What we're looking for is just to make sure that everything is clean and stored correctly. We'll get the mom drape we're going to check that here in a minute. This is where the employee stored their beverages, and this is a correct way to store that beverages are allowed in a kitchen area.

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They just need to be covered with a lid or a straw, and that's what case they have covered mugs and they're stored stored out of the way where you don't have any potential contamination of food checking the water temps here to make sure that the water temperature setting the correct, correct temperature range for this, because they they use chemicals.

B

Hot water temperature needs to be maintained at 1:30 or above we're, going to check the concentration of their sanitizer to make sure that it meets the required minimum concentration.

B

One part of what we look at during an inspection, its floors, walls and ceilings, and, as you can see here in the kitchen area, the the ceiling tiles are required to be smooth and easily cleanable and washable and they're very clean. We look at the floor areas. We do look in behind equipment in hard-to-reach areas. We also look at the condition of the walls to be sure that they're clean as well. What we do during inspection is look at their calibration of the thermometers make sure that they're properly calibrating and operating.

B

We use this as an opportunity to make sure that their thermometers are calibrated properly and accurate and to verify the dyes are calibrated and accurate as well I.

C

Can tell you for a fact that our customers certainly pay attention to to this score and there the consumer is becoming much wiser and and they know that, if you're not careful, food can be dangerous. So certainly our score has gotten a lot of comments, and this isn't the first one that we've gotten and we try to maintain that that level. If you're handling food, you should have to be served safe, certified in my opinion, there's too many things that can go wrong and you need to be knowledgeable about about those issues.

C

I just wanted to say a few words about our relationship with the Department of Environmental Services. They have been an invaluable resource to us. We've been open about 16 months and the department has been nothing but helpful. We look forward to their visit when they come in they're, always willing to answer questions either in person when they're doing an inspection or they're very responsive by telephone as well. How.

A

Often restaurants get inspected is based on something called a risk based frequency of inspection when.

B

We were assigning a risk-based frequency inspection, we base it on their menu or food processes and whether or not they serve a high-risk population. If it's someone like a hospital where they actually have people who are ill or have a compromised immune system, they're considered high-risk category and those were inspected once every three months. Typically, a hotdog stand is and inspected. Maybe twice a year, fast-food is inspected, not gonna make donald's twice a year. We base it on.

B

You know the number of potentially hazardous foods that they cook and cool, which increases the risk, the more that they cool food and reheat it. Then the risk goes up a.

A

Great resource for local restaurants, to both increase their sanitation rating and to become educated and properly handling their food is through the serve safe class, which is offered multiple times per year. This.

D

Is Carissa Moore on the environmental health program specialist, with Buncombe County environmental health through the Health, Department and I teach the surf safe class that we've been teaching here every other month for several years, and we've put hundreds of students through we put usually the manager or owner of restaurants and other food service facilities in the area. Through this class they come from other counties as well, and currently a restaurant will receive a two-point credit added to their grade.

D

So when you see those grade cards with the A's on them out there, two points could have been added into that score because they took this class. At the moment. It's voluntary for a facility to do this and to send someone, and they come every three years to retrain and recertify when.

E

I go into a surf safe class. We have a section, the communicable disease nurse teaches we go over prevalent, bacterias viruses, parasites that can be transmitted through a restaurant employee. It's important that they're aware of these different things, so we don't transmit those things to the public and then we can have a potential outbreak of things such as hepatitis, A, salmonella, E coli. These things can make a person extremely sick, plus there's the potential for death in general.

D

What we do in servsafe is we talk about the main issues that could cause illness in a restaurant, which would include safe food handling, proper personal hygiene making sure employees know what symptoms they should stay home and not come to work with knowing when to wash their hands. Other hygiene items like that we also about safe food handling, proper cooking temperatures preventing cross-contamination, and even though the program is voluntary. At this point, studies have shown that facilities will do better on their inspections.

D

Less people will get sick and their customers will be happier if they have trained stuff. So.

A

The next time you go to a restaurant, keep an eye out for the sanitation rating. The.

B

Sanitation score is based on the 10-point curve. Ninety to a hundred is an A. Eighty, two and eighty nine and a half is a B and seventy two. Seventy nine and a half is a C. The minimum score this the restaurant has to maintain is a seventy. If a restaurant sanitation score falls below a 70 that then North Carolina law requires that their food service permit be revoked immediately. That's not that common! You know.

B

If you see a restaurant that has a C hanging on the wall, they have a lot of problems and usually they're not going to be open very long years ago, when I first started, we just had a one-page document, and recently we change to the to the two page document: critical risk violations and good retail practices, critical risk violations, focus on the five most common causes of foodborne illness.

B

That's food from an unapproved source, good hygiene practices, contaminated equipment, proper cooking temperatures and time temperature abuse and the good retail practices are basically based on good housekeeping practices. Although.

A

Restaurant inspections are what the Environmental Health Division are most known, for. They also work throughout the community. In many other facets. We.

B

Also inspect school cafeterias we inspect meat markets, produce, stands and grocery stores, dailies and grocery stores. We inspect the food service at hospitals, we inspect the food service at daycares and we also conduct sanitation inspections at daycares to prevent the outbreak of disease. We also inspect food carts, put the push, carts and mobile food units that people are familiar with. We permit those and make sure that they meet the required standards.

B

We inspect those periodically pushcarts, obviously, or what we see serving hot dogs, mobile food units, which are more popular now that they're going to allow to operate downtown, we inspect those and permit those make sure that before they're permitted that they meet a standard that are all held to the same standard, we inspect swimming pools because there are outbreaks of disease through pool water. If it's not maintained properly, we inspect hotels for lodging facilities.

B

We inspect tattoo establishments to make sure that they are operated properly so that you can prevent the spread of disease through tattooing instruments. Now.

A

We're heading to the fair, where Kris Ernst will tell us about the environmental health divisions guidelines for the mobile food units that supply your family with everything from hot dogs to funnel cakes along.

F

With the restaurant inspections, which is the bulk of our work, we also look at the mobile feed units which are part of the festivals in general.

F

Is what we're looking at they're very important as far as what we're doing to make sure that they're, hot and cold holding these fees to the point to where it is safe for everybody, because there's a lot of people that come to these events and you're talking to thousands of people over a course of a three-day weekend and we're there to make sure that those standards are being monitored and watched for bail Sheriff. For instance, we come in every four to six hours.

F

You can expect a visit from one of us as far as rotation wise, because it is important to look at these temperatures that we're looking at most of ourselves thin like the unit's you have here, all able to cold hold in hot home cook, so on and so forth at their own water supply in some cases, and they also have their own wastewater catch basins.

F

So we look at all those different things to make sure that not only the people safe and able to feel confident and comfortable with us being there and inspecting these places and along with the environment as well, such as the wastewater and displace it cleanliness as well we're looking at also personal hygiene of the employees. They all have to have hand wash facilities within those units and to make sure that there again there's no cross-contamination they don't have to wear gloves.

F

We prefer that if they are handling food, those are definitely some of the things we're making sure that that's happening while we're doing our action or permitting process over the course of three months. Four months period, there's probably up to two to three festivals a weekend, so we work weekends as well to make sure that we're out there a time where things are going on what we do for the public.

F

Why I believe it's important is we have a lot of people that come in the area to visit and as far as the food safety part goes to make sure that we are keeping people from getting sick? Is the main priority? Obviously it takes very little for that to happen. If you have one person that has an illness or or they're, not sanitizing things in between raw products, for instance, and cooked and raw products, it can create a huge problem very fast and I think what we do is important and respect to that.

F

We're we're constantly monitoring these things, follow up and checking on in a situation where we are. We have a lot of festivals and a lot of tourism that comes in here. It can affect the economy as far as what we do on a day to day basis, if there's an outbreak, because it is public whenever that does happen, financial wise.

F

It makes a big difference as far as what we do and keeping people coming to the area to visit or to go to a festival and so and so forth, because all it does it take one bad situation or a problem that will that could really devastate someone's business or the area as a as.

A

A whole Buncombe County has over 700 restaurants that require multiple inspections per year. Combine that with the number of meat markets produce, stands pools, hospitals, tattoo parlors and every other establishment. They work with and you've got a very busy department a day in the life of Environmental Health employee involves traveling all over Buncombe County, making sure that everything from the pool that you swim in is clean to the food that you eat is safe. Our.

B

Job is important to the citizens of Buncombe County, because we provide a service to them. We're out inspecting restaurant, ensuring that food is safe so that the citizens of Buncombe County don't have to worry about that when they go into a restaurant they can be assured that that we're out there making sure that food is safe for the for the citizens of Buncombe County.

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