A novel approach to improve influenza vaccination rates among health care professionals: a prospective randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND

Although influenza is the leading infections cause of death in the United States, only 40% of health care workers (HCW) comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation for routine influenza vaccination.

METHODS

This study investigated a novel approach for improving influenza vaccination rates among HCW. Eight hundred employees we selected, 200 each from the following 4 categories: professional staff, resident physicians, registered nurses, and licensed practical nurses. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive (1) no intervention, (2) a letter explaining the importance of influenza vaccine for HCW, (3) a ticket activated with influenza vaccine administration for a raffle of a free Caribbean vacation for 2, or (4) both the educational letter and the raffle ticket. We compared the proportion of employees receiving vaccination and participating in the raffle across groups.

RESULTS

The influenza vaccination rate for all study subjects was 41%. The number of subjects receiving vaccine did not differ by occupation (P = .87) or intervention group (P = .66).

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides no evidence to support the use of mailed educational letters or a single large raffle prize incentive as a means to boost hospital employee influenza vaccination rates.