Fellow Med Center leaders-

 

In past years, DH has mandated flu vaccine for all employees, even those that are fully remote and never come to our facilities. This includes employees that reside in other states and work from home with no expectation of ever entering our facilities.

 

The justifications have been two-fold: 1) the organization has an obligation to support community health so mandating the flu shot has a positive impact on every community in the employees reside, and 2) all employees should be treated the same regardless of where they physically perform their jobs.

 

I have proposed that we exempt the fully remote employees from the flu shot mandate. We can strongly encourage it as we do for our patient population. But the mandate creates significant administrative challenges to enforce compliance. And from my perspective as Medical Director of Employee Health, I am focused on Infection Prevention/disease control in our facilities. A remote employee won’t interface with the patients coming into our facilities so there is no change in risk to our facility whether that employee is immunized or not. While community health is important, I am not convinced that mandating a flu shot for someone who works at home in Utah (or wherever) makes any kind of impact on that local community.

 

I’m wondering if any of the other larger medical centers has a policy on flu shots for remote employees, or how your organization handles this. If there is some aspect that I am missing in my thought process, I would appreciate hearing it – I’m always open to learning and adjusting my approach based on what I learn (which is why I attend AOHC!).

 

Thanks,

 

David

 

David S. Cockrum, MD, MPH
He/Him/His

Medical Director & Section Chief

Occupational & Environmental Medicine
Department of Medicine

Tel (603) 653-3881 | Fax (603) 650-0930
Dartmouth-Health.org

 

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center