Take the sting out of your flu program
The CDC recommends that all U.S. healthcare workers get vaccinated annually against influenza, but coordination of immunization programs in large health systems is no small task.
If you mandate that your employees get vaccinated each year, you probably spend months — if not the entire year — planning your workplace flu shot program. You notify and remind (and remind again!) employees of the requirement and when the shots will be offered. You hire extra clinicians to efficiently deliver thousands upon thousands of vaccinations, and you coordinate consent forms and questionnaires — all while trying to accurately track who has and has not complied. Then after administering all those shots comes the grueling task of pulling together the information you need to report to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).
There’s got to be a better way to tackle this monumental task. So, what is the secret to creating an efficient, effective and painless (except for the injection which might sting a little) process for employee participants, the health professionals performing the vaccinations and those responsible for tracking and reporting compliance?
Wake Forest Baptist Health knows the answer. The nationally prominent academic medical center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which mandates its 22,000 employees and 10,000 contractors and students receive a flu vaccination each year, achieved a 98 percent compliance rate in 2018. Moreover, the employee health department was able to meet reporting requirements without spreadsheets and a labor-intensive documentation process.
Find out how Wake Forest overcame the challenges of managing and tracking their mass immunization program here.