Table of Contents 6 2012 OVATION Awards Winning Entries

OVATION Awards Winning Entry
Communication Management
Employee, Member or HR Communication
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
Entrant’s Name: Dave Bourne
Organization’s Name: The Scarborough Hospital
Division/Category: Division One: Communication Management Category 8: Employee, Member or HR Communication
Title of Entry: Stick It To The Flu
Time Period of Project: October 2010‐November 2011
Brief Description: The Stick It To The Flu project was conceived to improve historically poor influenza vaccination rates for
hospital staff and physicians, by providing a highly visible education and awareness campaign that focused on the most
commonly cited barriers to inoculation.
Business Need/Opportunity
Each year in October, influenza vaccine is offered free of charge to all staff, physicians, volunteers and students at
The Scarborough Hospital. Vaccination is the best way to prevent the onset and spread of the flu virus 4 , so ensuring
a high rate of compliance helps protect both employees and patients.
Surprisingly, healthcare workers have among the lowest flu shot compliance rates within the total population—in
Ontario, similar to other Western‐world jurisdictions, the rate averages about 40%.
In Ontario, hospital flu vaccination rates are now publicly reportable, and poor showings historically have a negative
impact on employee morale and on the organization’s reputation. A number of below average reports in other
patient safety indicators, such as C. difficile, MRSA and VRE in recent years took a major toll on morale, and led to
news stories about the hospital’s safety record. It was therefore even more important to ensure a strong result in
the flu compliance report.
In 2010, The Scarborough Hospital was faced with a unique challenge. The 2009 appearance of H1N1 had prompted
an unusually high number of staff members to get inoculated against the strain—about 60%—but the need to also
get the regular seasonal flu shot was largely ignored, and fewer than 30% at each campus were vaccinated. Some
felt the first inoculation would offer enough protection, and others simply did not bother to get the second shot.
Still, seasonal flu impacts far more people than H1N1 ever did. The World Health Organization estimates that
between 250,000 and 500,000 people will die of the seasonal flu each year, while as many as five million will suffer
severe illness. For this reason, it is critical that healthcare workers protect themselves, their patients and their
families from the spread of the virus.
We undertook the Stick It To The Flu campaign in 2010 and 2011 in an effort to boost our historically low influenza
vaccination, aiming for a corporate compliance rate of 50%. Although this seemed like a lofty goal, we felt such a
4 According to several leading public health agencies, including the Public Health Agency of Canada, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the World Heatlh Organization, Toronto Public Health and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long‐Term Care.