Employees urged to get flu vaccine
About 59 percent of Penn State Health’s 12,000 employees have received the vaccine for this year’s strain of the influenza virus since September, according to Lori Bechtel, nurse manager for Employee Health and Employee Safety.
While that percentage is disappointing, Bechtel remains hopeful that it will improve in the coming weeks. “We still have a couple of walk-in clinics left,” she said.
A little more than 7,000 employees have either stopped in to get a flu shot at the free vaccination clinics or turned in paperwork showing they received the vaccine.
“I think what people don’t realize is that influenza can be really serious leading potentially to hospitalization, sometimes even death,” Bechtel said. “Anyone can become seriously ill from the flu, even otherwise healthy people. If you get the flu, you can spread it to others even when you don’t feel sick.”
She said the top reasons employees give for not getting a flu shot is that they don’t think it works or they think they will get sick from the vaccine.
Flu shots are a way for employees to protect themselves, their families and their patients from the virus. It takes two weeks for the vaccine to build up immunity against the flu in someone who has received the vaccine, so clinics begin offering the shots in August and continue to vaccinate people through the end of March.
“Two years ago, the flu season went the whole way into May,” Bechtel said.
Vaccinated employees will receive a sticker for their employee ID badge. Health care providers who decline vaccination and do not have a vaccination sticker on their ID badge will be required to wear a mask when within six feet of patients during inpatient and outpatient clinical encounters during influenza season. Because of the serious risk to patient safety, employees should not decline the vaccine for any reason other than medical contraindication.
Last year, 80 percent of employees at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center got vaccinated, but the organization has never achieved higher than 88 percent compliance.
Remaining walk-in flu-shot clinics for the season will take place on the following dates:
- Nov. 6: 8 a.m.-noon, 30 Hope Drive, Room 2702
- Nov. 8: 7 a.m.-4 p.m., Dining Rooms A and B of the main hospital cafeteria
- Nov. 20: 9 a.m.-3 p.m., University Physicians Center, Room 1010
- Dec. 3: 7-11:30 a.m. main hospital, Room T2500
- Dec. 4: 7 a.m.-4 p.m., Dining Rooms A and B of the main hospital cafeteria
- Dec. 6: 7 a.m.- 4 p.m., main hospital, Room HG305
If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email the Penn State College of Medicine web department.