As of September, 30% of hospital health care workers remained unvaccinated.

Dive briefs:

• About 30% of U.S. healthcare workers are employed in hospitals Remains unvaccinated As of September 15, an analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday by the Association of Infection Control and Epidemiology Experts.
• The findings include data from 3.3 million health care workers in more than 2,000 hospitals collected from January 20th to September 15th.
• Healthcare workers working in children’s hospitals had the highest immunization rates, along with those working in metropolitan areas.

Dive Insight:

Healthcare worker vaccination rates are similar to those in the general population, but exposure and risk of infection may be higher in environments where infected COVID-19 patients are treated. Hannah Les, a CDC epidemiologist, the lead author of the analysis, said.

When the shot was first deployed, vaccination rates increased among healthcare professionals, rising from 36% to 60% between January and April 2021. However, immediately after that, a big deceleration occurred.

From April to August, vaccination rates increased by only 5%. After that, it rose by 5% again in just one month from August to September. This is probably due to the increased number of systems implementing delta variants and their own mandates.

Researchers have also found discrepancies in immunization rates based on the type of hospital and its geographical location.

By September, children’s hospital workers had the highest vaccination rates (77%), followed by short-term acute care hospitals (70%), long-term care facilities (68.8%) and critical access hospitals (64%). Workers followed. ..

By September, about 71% of health workers in metropolitan facilities had been vaccinated, compared to 65% in rural facilities.

The findings come as the health system functions to comply with the new immunization obligations from the Biden administration.

Medical facilities must comply with CMS rules that stipulate that employees must be fully vaccinated by January 4. Risk of losing Medicare and Medicaid funds.. Unlike the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, which apply to companies with 100 or more employees and exclude healthcare providers, the CMS rules do not allow test exceptions.

The rules of both institutions were hit by a backlash. Justice Secretary of 10 predominantly regional states of Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire. Proceedings On October 10, he opposed CMS rules and said mandates would exacerbate existing staff shortages.

“It is unconstitutional and illegal to require health care workers to vaccinate or retire, especially in rural Missouri, exacerbating the shortage of medical staff,” state Justice Secretary Eric Schmidt said in a statement. There is a possibility. “

However, some regional systems that have implemented their own mandates have shown good results.

Staff vaccination rates rose to 97% and 99%, respectively, after North Carolina’s UNC Health and Novant Health requested shots. White House Report..

Of Novant Health’s 35,000 employees, about 375 were suspended due to non-compliance, of which about 200 were vaccinated and able to return to work, according to the report.

In addition, several major hospital chains across the country are joining the looming deadline, including HCA, which has 183 hospitals and more than 275,000 employees.

The chain requires employees to be fully vaccinated by the January 4 CMS deadline, a spokesman said in an email statement.

At the same time, it is difficult to predict the flu season this year, but “the number of influenza virus detections reported by the Public Health Institute has increased in recent weeks,” Reses said.

“Since the CDC prepares influenza and COVID to circulate with other respiratory viruses, influenza vaccination is especially with the COVID-19 circulation to reduce the risk of influenza and potentially serious complications. The combination is very important, “Reses said.