The Importance Of Mandatory Vaccination

Mandatory Influenza Vaccinations for healthcare providers can be a controversial topic for some and may propose a challenge to some provider’s ethical values and beliefs. The topic of mandatory vaccination for influenza (“flu”) has been widely studied and debated among professionals over several years. It is apparent that there is some movement towards a mandatory vaccination for influenza by healthcare institutions as the benefit out weighs the risk on several fronts. “Influenza infection is associated with 36,000 excess deaths and > 200,000 hospitalizations in the United States annually. It is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death in the United States every year” (Babcock, Geminhart, Jones, Dunagan, & Woeltje, 2010, p. 459).

Influenza results in excess of two hundred thousand hospitalizations in the United States (Tosh & Jacobson, 2010). Mortality rates for influenza related illness have risen. The purpose of this paper is to discuss mandated healthcare influenza vaccination in healthcare workers and will examine a Cochrane review summary, mandated healthcare influenza vaccination, and healthcare worker immunization practices in a Veterans Affairs Health Center.

To increase patient and hcw safety, health care workers should be mandate to get vaccination. Hcw are more at risk to get infection because of their contact with patient and then to spread it to patients, specially patients who are susceptible to the infection (CITATION). Influenza symptoms appears within 1-4 days. Before even hcw workes know that they have influenza infection and they are contagious, they may spread the infection to patient . Also, if hcw are infected, it will cause impact on their mental and physical functioning. Two randomly conducted studies have supported that mandatory influenza vaccination for hcw helped in decreasing death rate upto 44% in nursing home residents (Ottenberg, 2011). Potter et. al. identified that because of increased staff vaccination mortality rate reduced from 17% to 10% (Suillivan, 2010). The other fact which can effect patient safety due to low rate of vaccination is absenteeism of hcw during influenza epidemic.

Vaccinations have been a topic of controversy among various populations for decades. The controversy exists around the decision to be vaccinated for certain contagious diseases or to omit receiving vaccinations for various reasons including those of medical, ethical, and religious derivation. The profession of healthcare faces a particular obstacle in regard to annual vaccinations against influenza. This review will discuss the following ethical debate: Is it ethical to mandate health care workers to receive annual influenza vaccinations? For the purposes of this review, the term ‘health care worker’ will be defined as any person who is employed by a health care institution and participates in personal interactions with patients. Undoubtedly, registered nurses (RNs) are among the most prevalent of all health care workers. This topic was chosen because influenza is a rampant and contagious respiratory virus that carries the potential to infect anyone. According the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (2014), approximately 5 to 15 percent of the United States population becomes infected with influenza annually and roughly 200,000 people are hospitalized each year due to influenza. Clearly, influenza generates havoc for many people; however, the virus can be largely prevented by receiving an annual vaccination. Annual influenza vaccinations have been rendered the best way to prevent seasonal influenza and have also been deemed safe (CDC, 2014). Health care workers

Health care governments have endorsed an assortment of vaccination policies and mediations to safeguard against the known dangers of influenza communication, with longer patient stays, absenteeism, intermissions in health care, and death. Studies assessing the consequence of health care workers vaccination found that health care workers influenza vaccination was linked with a decrease in patient death (Murana, 2014). Assessing the results of health care worker influenza vaccination on patient results anticipated that if all health care workers were vaccinated, patient influenza infections could be stopped.

With influenza vaccination rates remaining low in the HCP population, there has recently been an increased emphasis on improving vaccination rates among HCPs. Low influenza vaccination rates have caused many healthcare facilities to initiate and mandate employees to receive the influenza vaccine. Research has proven to reduce morbidity and mortality among patients in healthcare facilities as well as decrease illness and absenteeism among HCPs (Sickbert & Weber, 2013). For these reasons multiple professional organizations are recommending an annual influenza vaccine for all HCPs, if medically suitable for this vaccination. Requiring a physician waiver for non-suitable HCP, all non-suitable HCP are expected or required to wear a mask in direct patient care areas.

Recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough have brought the vaccination controversy to the forefront of health safety within the United States. This could be primarily due to the fact the United States has never had a mandatory vaccination policy in effect. Each state has its own immunization policies, which the states govern and regulate. All fifty states do require up-to-date vaccines to attend public schools, including many colleges and universities. There are however, some exemptions granted. A person who opts out of being vaccinated should understand the danger, with a decision that could result in death. Despite the fact that governing of exemptions are not intense enough to justify the liberal use of them, preventing a disease

In the healthcare field, it is essential that workers receive the flu vaccination due to the potential to either become infected by a patient or unknowingly spreading the virus to the patient population. The state of New York requires that health care workers in not only hospitals but other medical agencies in the state “be immunized against influenza viruses as a precondition

Monitoring Flu vaccinations is one of our performance measures in my facility where beginning in the month of September to about March, you have what we call a clinical reminder that you have to complete every time you see a patient and this ensures that every clinician that opens this patients chart will have the opportunity to ask the patient if they have received a flu shot for the year and if not and encourage then to get one if they have not had it; The (CDC) encourages employers to make flu vaccinations compulsory in the workplace because it found that compliance among organizations with a mandatory vaccination policy was as high as 88.8 percent compared to 44.3 percent in organizations that did not; Although there are individuals

The anti-vaccination sentiment exists worldwide, with activists arguing that vaccines are ineffective with a high risk of side effects, encouraging people to forgo immunization, including the influenza inoculation. Conversely, I wonder if these same activists would promote anti-immunization and anti-influenza inoculation to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for health care providers and medical personnel, especially countries with high infectious disease rates and high risk assessment of influenza with pandemic potential. Moreover, would these activists be willing to promote these individuals rights to perform their specialties in the United States without proper vaccinations? The answer to the question is not by any means. Nevertheless, a person deciding whether to be

Every year, for the last 14 years of my nursing career I have dealt with the same controversial nursing issue. It happens once a year around this season, and the debate never seems to improve. All this fuss comes from the dreaded influenza vaccine and whether it should be mandatory. The phenomenal invention of this vaccine has led to many misconceptions, imperfect theories, and rumored abominable side effects.

Hospital administration considered the strained relationships that could result between the employer and staff and lack of data on mandatory vaccination programs. HMC chose instead to modify their existing vaccination program to include one-on-one influenza and vaccination education, initiate data collection on declinations, and use mobile teams to increase the convenience of vaccination for HCWs (Lynch et al., 2015). Employee compliance could only be achieved by receiving and documenting the vaccination; providing written documentation of a medical exemption from an appropriate healthcare professional, or completing an online influenza educational module followed by a 10-15 minute one-on-one appointment with an employee health nurse or physician (Lynch et al., 2015). The addition of the one-on-one education/training sessions using the “stick” approach resulted in a 50% reduction in declinations for non-medical reasons and an overall HCW vaccination rate increase to 93% (Lynch et al., 2015).

Influenza, as stated above, is a preventable spreadable infection. The goal of this education session was to expand the knowledge of long-term residents on vaccination against influenza. In a preliminary meeting, it was found that over 15 residents had refused this years’ influenza vaccination. The objectives of the teaching plan included: identifying signs and symptoms of influenza, discuss both positive and negative feels during the vaccine, identify exclusion criteria to receiving the vaccine, and demonstrate arm exercises to prevent soreness after vaccination (“Government”, 2014).

To the average individual, the word ‘vaccination’ means to prevent illness. Vaccinations have many advantages; they allow us to be less susceptible to a variety of illnesses and diseases. Many individuals believe that vaccinations should not be mandatory. However, the benefits from vaccinations greatly outweigh the risks from side effects. The judgments are factual and ethical and are supported by testing and research findings from multiple sources.

Each year the WHO monitors the circulating influenza viruses, updating the vaccine twice yearly to reflect the viruses most likely to cause outbreaks that year (WHO, 2016). The preventative efficacy of the vaccine is dependent upon how well matched it is to the strains of circulating virus, however even when there is a mismatch it has been shown to confer some protection (Osterholm et al., 2012; Pebody et al., 2016). One of the groups targeted by the UK’s vaccination policy is the over 65 age group however, while this is a high-risk group for influenza morbidity and mortality, several studies have shown reduced efficacy of vaccination in this age group due to a reduced immune response (Darvishian et al., 2014; Hayward et al., 2006; Osterholm et al., 2012; 2016; Rivetti et al., 2006). However, Puig-Barbera et al. (2016) found that during the 2014/15 influenza season efficacy of vaccination was found to be greater in the over 65s and several studies suggest that the vaccination of health care workers, especially those working closely with the elderly, can confer additional protection to this age group (Hayward et al., 2006; Rivetti et al., 2006). Studies also suggest that targeted vaccination of children with live attenuated vaccine (LAIV) not only reduces the impact of influenza within this age group but can