Improving Healthcare Worker Flu Vaccination Rates

Schaffner explains that the key to boosting HCW immunization rates lies in implementing a number of evidence-driven interventions instead of cherry-picking among what he calls a “menu” of flu prevention strategies. “It takes a lot of work and there’s no single thing you can do to enhance immunization rates; you must do a number of things,” Schaffner emphasizes. “If you omit one or two critical items from the menu, you can make marginal differences but you’re not likely to achieve large success.”

At the top of the menu is buy-in from the healthcare institution’s top leadership, Schaffner says, explaining, “The single most important thing is convincing the most senior leadership in the institution that HCW immunization is important and to expound its importance in every possible venue. They must let everyone know that influenza immunization is an expectation of the institution and that it is part of our professional and ethical responsibility to our patients. We need our institutional leaders to embrace HCW immunization and ensure it is accessible and convenient to all personnel.”

Individuals in the executive suite can serve as role models, says Schaffner, who writes, “Healthcare professionals should view annual influenza vaccine as a professional responsibility for many reasons: it make us positive role models for our patients, it minimizes the likelihood that we will get influenza and be unable to work at a time when the healthcare system needs us most, and it will help us avoid doing harm by infecting patients in our care.”¹