Mandatory Flu Shots Urged for Healthcare Workers

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some public health officials are advocating mandatory influenza vaccination of healthcare workers, because current vaccination rates are so low and the potential benefits to patients so high.

"A new approach to implementation of healthcare worker vaccination is needed," write Drs. Christopher J. Hoffmann and Trish M. Perl at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, in an editorial in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

In 2003, vaccination rates among healthcare workers averaged only about 40 percent, Perl told Reuters Health.

"People are blown away when we talk about how strong the data are just in preventing mortality (by vaccinating healthcare workers)," Perl said. "Now we need to move on and do something about it."

Several measures that hospitals and other healthcare institutions can take will increase vaccination rates among their workers. First of all, Perl said, education is a must. Even today, many healthcare workers, including physicians, believe that they can contract influenza from the vaccination, "which just isn't true."

There also needs to be a shift in emphasis, from the benefits to the healthcare worker to the extent to which vaccinations can protect patients with whom they have contact.

Plus, access to vaccines should be increased, she noted, by providing them at no cost and at convenient locations and times, since one of the most common reasons given for not getting vaccinated is lack of time.

"You cannot expect an ICU nurse to go across campus to a place that's only open from 9 to 5," the editorialist noted. "As much as there is a healthcare worker responsibility, there is a huge institutional responsibility. They've got to make it easier, by moving vaccinations services to wards, clinics, and common meeting areas, such as hospital cafeterias."

These measures are doable, she added. At Johns Hopkins, they've reached healthcare worker vaccination rates of up to 80 percent in the past.

SOURCE: Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, online November 9, 2005.