by Paul Duranczyk, NHA

Some years ago, I was struck by a statement from a County Public Health Nurse who stated that skilled nursing facilities should be one of the safest places to be during an endemic or pandemic outbreak. She examined the eldercare patient population characteristics and concluded they have minimal risk factors from obtaining any community acquired condition like influenza. Our patients rarely leave the campus; they have very few visitors, thus little or no chance to come in contact with any dreaded virus.

However, further examination then identified the biggest exposure risk factor to our frail elders….the caring, compassionate health care worker. Huh? That just does not fit. Health care workers would not intentionally cause any harm to those they serve. Well, indeed they can. So we set out to address this disturbing condition and promote vaccinations.

For the past six years, our facility has aggressively launched a staff influenza vaccination campaign at the beginning of each season. Fueled by the moral imperative to not harm our frail elders coupled with a chance to win a big flat screen television, we have achieved a staff vaccination rate exceeding 92%, which was better than the local acute care hospitals.

Some of the key features of our program include:

• A big kickoff announcement at the mandatory staff meeting in September or October.  This year’s raffle gift is a choice of a television, spa day, gourmet cookware, or bicycle.
• No cost for vaccination
• Multiple times and dates for vaccination clinic
• Consistent vaccinators assists with relationship building
• Various education materials to include posters
• Frequent and ongoing updates of vaccination rates
• Referring staff to the www.familiesfightingflu.org website for additional information and motivation

Two weeks into our campaign this year, the County Health Officer issued a mandatory influenza vaccination order for all institutional health care workers. This order provided very clear direction and assisted in validating the facility efforts to date. We are projecting a 95-98% staff vaccination rate this year with only 3 staff medical exemptions due to contraindications.

Additional resources may be obtained at www.immunize.org. Some organizations have used colored stickers or zip ties on names badges to indicate vaccination status.