Abstract
Although influenza (flu) and COVID-19 vaccines are highly recommended for healthcare workers, it is known that vaccination rates are suboptimal in healthcare settings. There is a need to optimize vaccination rates among healthcare workers as there are direct correlations to increased patient safety and protection of staff from healthcare associated infections. Our health care organization employed some novel strategies to increase the uptake of both flu and COVID-19 vaccinations by identifying and addressing common barriers. Barriers were identified through team meetings, review of previous years' vaccination trends, and historical information. Strategies to overcome these barriers included dissemination of information through various team meetings; identifying peer vaccination champions among specific groups that had historically low vaccination rates; creating a sense of urgency with weekly announcements regarding vaccinations; and computer screensavers with graphics promoting vaccinations. We believed education was key to success. Our focus was not only on the vaccination rates, but also on compliance which is defined as either getting the vaccine or submitting a declination after completing an education module. These efforts resulted in the organization achieving more than 95% compliance for both vaccinations. Our vaccination uptake rates for influenza were greater than 85% and updated COVID-19 vaccination rates were around 42%. We believe that the grass-root level work initiated for this year's campaign was one of the drivers for our success and some aspects could be replicated for vaccinating the public as well.