Update on required flu shots for NY healthcare workers
In an effort to provide some clarification for those of you working in New York (or those of you following this unprecedented regulation), I wanted to post an update to my previous post about required seasonal and H1N1 flu shots for healthcare workers in New York state.
You can read the official state regulation, by clicking here.
This regulation notes that “personnel” means all those employed or affiliated with the medical facility, “who either have direct contact with patients or whose activities are such that if they were infected with influenza, they could potentially expose patients, or others who have direct contact with patients, to influenza.”
According to the regulation, those that have medical contraindications, or those that do not have direct contact with patients or participate in activities that could potentially infect patients do not have to get the flu shot. This includes:
- Employees whose job site is physically separated from patient care locations
- Employees whose job activities result in no more than infrequent or incidental contact with others that might have direct contact with patients
This includes examples such as administrative, data entry, and building or property maintenance functions.
The regulation also notes that “healthcare facilities” include general hospitals and “diagnostic treatment centers.” Section 751.1 of Title 10 defines diagnostic treatment centers as,
“…a medical facility with one or more organized health services not part of an inpatient hospital facility or vocational rehabilitation center primarily engaged in providing services and facilities to out-of-hospital or ambulatory patients by or under the supervision of a physician or, in the case of a dental service or dispensary, of a dentist, for the prevention, diagnosis and, in the case of a treatment center, treatment of human disease, pain, injury, deformity or physical condition, not including the individual or group private practice of medicine.”
(If you’d like to see the reference of this definition, click here, select “Search Title 10″ on the right side of the page, search for “751″ and click on the second link titled “751.1 – Definitions.”)
It is important to understand that current regulation does not apply to private physician offices or outpatient services, only facilities established, operated, and regulated under PHL Article 28.
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David LaHoda
David LaHoda, the managing editor of Medical Environment Update and OSHA Watch, has produced healthcare training videos and consulted for medical practices and ambulatory healthcare facilities.
David has written 196 posts.
Comments
Question: What HR policy was initiated to state consequences for not taking the vaccination?
Here is information on exemptions from another post comment:
From the New York State Department of Health FAQ page where it addresses exemptions as follows:
Are there any exemptions for immunization?
Medical contraindications recognized by ACIP will be permitted. These ACIP contraindications and precautions will be posted on the NYSDOH website to guide determinations made by individual practitioners as to the existence of a medical contraindication.
Can Physician Assistants (PA) certify medical exemptions?
Yes, a licensed physician assistant can authorize a medical exemption. This will be clarified in subsequent emergency regulations and in the final regulation.
Doesn’t the state have to allow religious exemptions to vaccination?
There is no legal requirement to allow religious exemptions to influenza vaccination. Health care personnel who care for ill patients have a responsibility to protect their patients from the inadvertent transmission of a communicable disease. Currently, HCP with direct patient care have been required to show immunity to measles and rubella and undergo annual screening for tuberculosis, which is usually carried out by a skin test injection, as a condition of employment, without religious exemptions permitted. Only medical exemptions to vaccines and tuberculosis screening are permitted.
my job says get stab or find another job. this seems highly illegal and against my civil rights.
Before you haphazardly throw around terms like civil rights and constitutional rights without knowing what they mean, realize that the rights you have outside of your job are not exactly the same rights you have inside the workplace. Your employer can require you to look, act, or say a lot of things that you would not be required to do when you are not working. Again, for a succinct explanation if this concept see “Can employers require swine flu shots?”.
I totally agree with you. If the government can’t make someone have an abortion how can they make us take a vaccine….especially one that has no long term history to read about. We don’t know the long term effects of this vaccine.
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