Beyond flu: ID groups expected to urge mandating a wide array of vaccinations for health care workers

January 12th, 2015

Health care workers should be required to receive all vaccinations recommended by federal public health authorities, according to a consensus of leading infection prevention organizations, Hospital Employee Health has learned.

Under this broader approach, employers would mandate measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), varicella, pertussis and hepatitis B vaccines, in addition to the annual influenza vaccine.

Organizations including the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) are expected to issue a joint statement endorsing hospital mandates for the vaccinations recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Voluntary programs are “somewhat successful, but they don’t reach the level of universality,” says W. Charles Huskins, MD, MSc, consultant in pediatric infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and a liaison from SHEA to the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC). “When you make something mandatory, it happens.”

--Michele Marill

For more on this story see the January 2014 issue of HEH