Continuing education is crucial to a mandatory vaccination policy

By: Evan Sweeney May 5th, 2010

A mandatory influenza vaccination policy cannot stand alone. In fact, continued education and promotional efforts are just as important to help communicate the positive effects of vaccination, answer questions for healthcare workers, and encourage compliance, says Hilary M. Babcock, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine and medical director of occupational health (infectious diseases) at Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s Hospitals both in St. Louis.

“Just because you have a mandate doesn’t mean you shouldn’t provide encouragement and incentives, publicity, and themed campaigns and other things that make it a little more fun and exciting to still keep people’s enthusiasm and to really keep the focus still on the safety of the patient,” Babcock says.

Terri Rebmann, RN, PhD, CIC, associate director of curricular affairs and assistant professor at the Saint Louis University School of Public Health says it’s equally important to provide facts and figures about influenza transmission and the effectiveness of the vaccine.

“I would think the most important thing to do would be provide a lot of education to staff as to why it is necessary,” Rebmann says. “If you give them the data about how staff can actually contribute to the outbreak, that they can actually be asymptomatic carriers, and they could therefore not only transmit the infection, but cause serious disease or death in a patient … hopefully they would see that was sort of their obligation as a healthcare worker to protect the health of the patient, and part of that seems to be to get vaccinated against healthcare associated infections.”

Comments(1) Infection Control, Pandemic Influenza

Comments

By Kathy Dowling on May 9th, 2010 at 7:37 pm

Our hospital system was the only one in South Carolina to mandate the seasonal and the H1N1 vaccine for all healthcare workers, volunteers and students. We had a 98.9% compliance rate, with a little less than 2000 employees and 150 volunteers. We did allow accommodation for those that had an allergy, med history that did not allow vaccines, or certain religious affiliates. Our focus with our campaign was patient safety, worker safety, and healthcare responsibility. We had hurdles to jump and crosses to bear, but it was well worth the effort. My number is 843-652-1670 if you have any questions.