Improving Healthcare Worker Flu Vaccination Rates

Earlier this year, the CDC introduced its enhanced recommendations designed to increase influenza vaccination coverage among HCWs. The new recommendations provide strategies to make vaccine more accessible to HCWs and to help facilities better determine coverage rates and the reasons their staff have for not getting vaccinated.

The guidance, drafted by CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommends that:

• Facilities offer influenza vaccine annually to all eligible personnel.

• Vaccine be offered at the workplace, during all shifts and at no cost to employees.

• Hospitals use strategies proven to improve vaccination coverage, including: education to combat fears and misconceptions about influenza and influenza vaccines, use of reminders to staff, having leadership set an example by getting vaccinated.

• Facilities obtain a signed form from staff who decline vaccination for reasons other than medical. This tool is designed to help facilities better monitor who is offered vaccine, employee concerns and barriers to vaccination so appropriate strategies can be designed to improve vaccination coverage.