Mandatory Flu Vaccines Increase Provider Vaccination Rates

With the next flu season approaching, the time is right for hospitals and other healthcare communities to consider implementing a mandatory vaccination program for seasonal influenza, reports HealthLeaders Media . "It's really important for healthcare personnel to be vaccinated because they are in really close contact with the most vulnerable of our populations," says Terri Rebmann with the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University. "If the healthcare personnel become infected, regardless of whether or not they have symptoms, when they shed the influenza virus during ... care activities, they can then expose those really high-risk beneficiaries." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during the 2015-2016 flu season, there was a vaccination rate of more than 95 percent for healthcare workers whose employers mandated their inoculation for seasonal influenza, versus a 79 percent vaccination rate overall among healthcare employees. "The research has shown that the mandatory vaccination policies are the strongest indicator of high vaccination rates among healthcare personnel," Rebmann notes. She also says mandatory vaccination for health workers is recommended by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. In May, the Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare issued a position paper recommending flu shots for healthcare workers, and asked "administrators to consider a policy that makes annual influenza vaccination mandatory (with medical exemptions) or offer alternatives to vaccination such as requiring the use of surgical masks for ... care by healthcare workers who refuse the vaccine."