Washington state hospital sees 96% compliance with flu shots

Virginia Mason Medical Center has a no-vaccine, no-job mandate for staff. Most nurses were immunized, despite a court ruling saying they could refuse.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Feb. 13, 2006.

In 1998, 19 infants in a Canadian neonatal intensive care unit were infected with influenza, and one died. Only 15% of the hospital's staff was immunized, and health care workers were the likely source of the spread, according to an article in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

It's precisely this type of tragedy that top officials at Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center hoped to avoid in 2004 when they announced that all employees -- including 390 physicians -- would have to be vaccinated, provide a medical or religious exemption, or find work elsewhere.

After being slowed by vaccine shortages, a legal dispute and ethical concerns, Virginia Mason announced in December 2005 that 96% of its 5,000 employees had received the influenza vaccine. Hospital officials fired a handful of employees who refused the vaccine.

While the figure fell short of Virginia Mason's 100% goal, it is more than double the 36% national health care worker immunization rate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documented in 2003.

"In the months and years to come, we'll see [Virginia Mason] as a leader," said Greg Poland, MD, director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group and a leading advocate for more aggressive health care worker immunization programs.

The CDC estimates that influenza and flu-related complications annually kill 36,000 people, 90% of whom are elderly. More than 114,000 people are hospitalized for influenza yearly, the CDC says, though it's unclear how big a role doctors and other health care workers play in spreading the disease.