Flu vaccine

[cherricka]

Ok, who had to fight over the flu vaccine's this year? We had to use a multi-vial for ours this year. Did you know they are only stable for 24 hours after you draw them up? I went into the office and grabbed what I could, and did them all in one day. A lot easier than trying to get them each morning, never knowing if there would be any more available that day, after you promised you would get everyone vaccinated!

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

We got our usual shipment of 150 doses. I went to get my shot last Tursday and line 15 persons deep, got busy and didn"t get a chance to return. I will be in Friday AM line for sure.

[cinnyluvscats]

We aren't even getting any! Not for our patients and not from our employer! I went to a local health dept. for mine (I have chronic health problems, so I qualified.) For these patients who are truly homebound, it would be life-saving to give them flu shots. Granted, they won't be out and about, but all the caregivers coming into the home could carry the bugs in!

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Flu Expert Calls For

Vaccination for Healthcare Workers

Johns Hopkins senior hospital epidemiologist and flu expert is calling for mandatory vaccination of all healthcare workers as the best means of protecting patients and hospital staff from widespread outbreaks of the viral illness. Studies by other U.S. researchers show that voluntary vaccination programs dont do the job and that each year, nearly 40,000 Americans die from influenza, many of them elderly or ill.

In an editorial published in the Nov. 9 online edition of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Trish Perl, MD, MSc, concludes that mass vaccination policies are required to prevent patients from accidentally contracting the virus directly from an infected medical staff worker or indirectly from other patients or visitors via medical staff.

Previous research from Hopkins showed that annual flu shots have been almost 88 percent effective at reducing the risk of flu infection and that they reduced by one-half the number of deaths among hospital patients from the disease.

Staff surveys from other hospitals have shown that the most common reason cited for not getting a vaccination is a lack of time (47 percent). Surprisingly, a remarkably high number of staff, more than 30 percent, believed they could catch influenza from the vaccine itself, which is false