National Vaccine Advisory Committee issues flu vaccine recommendations for health care workers

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee has recommended that hospitals and other health care facilities that cannot achieve a 90% annual flu vaccination rate for their employees should “strongly consider” requiring employees to receive the vaccine, according to AHA News Now.

According to the article, the committee also recommended that health care facilities establish comprehensive flu prevention programs and integrate their flu vaccination and infection prevention programs and that the Department of Health and Human Services should standardize how it measures health care employee vaccination rates.  The recommendations will now go to HHS for consideration.

 (Sources: AHA News Now, http://ahanews.com, February 9, 2012)