Flu vaccination

An article from WebMD Health News dated October 14, 2010 highlighted results of a survey conducted by Consumer Reports regarding the flu vaccine for 2010. The survey found 28% of healthcare workers stated they would not get the flu vaccine this year.  A follow up article by Consumer Reports regarding this survey stated:

           “…  only 52 percent of health-care workers and those who work in residential nursing homes were immunized for seasonal flu last year and just 34 percent for H1N1."   (http://www.consumerreports.org/health/healthy-living/flu-vaccine/overview/index.htm)

The reasons for not being vaccinated were not provided in this article. Even though this was barely half of the health care workers, it was still a higher percentage than the 45% of adult Americans who were vaccinated last year for seasonal flu.

If health care facilities were required to publish the flu vaccination rates in conjunction with the rate of health care acquired flu infections like they do the core performance measures (e.g. treatment for heart attack, pneumonia, incidence of surgical site infections, etc.), would the health care consumer see this as a valuable performance indicator? Maybe in the future, but currently, I do not think health care consumers believe the vaccination is helpful as evidenced by the low vaccination rates over the years. 

 I think there is a potential for this statistic to be useful in providing education to the health care consumer. Showing a correlation between a high percentage of flu vaccinated health care staff with low incidences of health care acquired flu infections and incorporating this information in consumer education may reduce the “flu invincibility” thinking indicated by the survey and lead more people to vaccinate annually.  It may also be used to show the vaccination is not only a protection for the individual being vaccinated, but also protecting those the vaccinated individual is in contact with on a regular basis. Once the consumer sees the value in the vaccination, then they can provide pressure on the facilities to ensure the staff is vaccinated at a higher rate. 

Utilizing the CDC website, I tried to search for flu rates in health care facilities for patients who had an admission diagnosis other than the flu.  At this point in time, I have not been able to find such specific data.  I was only able to easily locate flu surveillance data for trends in the communities.  The data may be available, but it must be easily accessible in order to help change the minds of those who do not think it is worth getting the flu vaccine.  With the difficulty in finding such data, it does not surprise me there are those who continue to refuse the flu vaccine. If there is not readily available and extensive data to show how important it is to utilize the flu vaccine, then how can we expect people to change their actions?  Even with the extensive data showing simple hand washing is a major deterrent to infection transmission, there continues to be high rates of health care acquired infections associated with MRSA, VRE, and C-Diff et al. due to low compliance with hand washing.

This is an opportunity for health informatics to improve the collection, analysis, evaluation, and dissemination of the data regarding health care acquired flu infections. Making these improvements, especially with dissemination, health informatics can positively affect change in the prevention of flu.

The survey press release from Consumer Reports can be found at http://pressroom.consumerreports.org/pressroom/2010/10/my-entry-1.html. 

As an aside: during the course of my search for data regarding the flu and flu vaccinations, I found the ConsumerReportsHealth.org and Consumersunion.org as additional sources of health information.  I had known of the first website, but did not realize the publisher of Consumer Reports had a complementary website. My initial impression of these websites is they can be valuable adjuncts to other health information websites.