Journal of Clinical and Cellular Immunology
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9899
ISSN: 2155-9899
Muyaed Ibraheem
King Abdulaziz Medical City, Saudi Arabia
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Clin Cell Immunol
Background: HCW may acquire
influenza both in the health care
setting and in the community,
and they can easily transmit
the virus to patients in their
care. Reducing the viral disease
burden among patients and
healthcare workers is one of
the strong recommendations
of the Saudi Ministry of Health
and Center for Disease Control
in the US. The objective was
to implement a series of
overlapping methods to improve
vaccine utilization.
Methods: An enhanced
vaccination campaign has been
designed to implement between
September 2017 and end of
February 2018. The following
methods were used; (1)
Adopting six sigma lean process
(design, measure, assessment,
improve and control), (2)
Building partnerships with
clinical leadership (3) Assigning
nursing liaisons, (4) Printing
and extensive distribution of
campaign materials (5) Voice
reminders through the hospital
media three times a day, (6)
Conducting flu educational
session in all hospital location
specially those known of low
compliance, (7) Improving
Access to vaccination by setting
multiple stations and booths in
different units (8) Recruitment
of volunteer vaccinators and
offering incentives for nurse
vaccinator, (9) Setting quality
checks to reduce the amount of
vaccine wastes, (10) Supporting
universal vaccination and signed
waiver form vaccine refuses. The
outcome of the campaign was
the vaccination rates for different
professional categories and
patient care units. The outcomes
were compared to previous
years.
Results: During the current
campaign, a total 37,555 has
been vaccinated out of 40,000
targeted HCWs which represent
a vaccination rate of 93.8%. The
vaccine doses administered in
the current campaign (40,000)
was almost double of the last
campaign (25,260). Similar
to previous years, nurses had
the highest vaccination rates
(85%) while physicians had the
lowest (44%). Both nurses and
respiratory therapists had better
vaccination rates compared
with previous years. Similarly,
intensive care units and to less
extent emergency departments
had better vaccination rates
compared with previous years.
Conclusion/Lesson learned:
Implementation of several
overlapping methods to enhance
flu vaccinations at the healthcare
setting helped us improving
our flu vaccination rate in some
professional categories and
hospital locations. However, we
still far from achieving our target
of >90% vaccination coverage.
As done before in some other
institutions, it is suggested that
flu vaccine should be mandated
in our hospital for a yearly
contract unless it is clinically
contraindicated.
E-mail: matalkahm@ngha.med.sa