Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: ‘We need more vaccine,’ rep stresses.

Confusion and disorder are keeping many home care staff from getting the COVID-19 vaccination. But so are fears held by staff, particularly aides.

About half of the employees at Home Instead in Hewitt, Texas, signed up to receive the vaccine when it was distributed Dec. 28, the Waco Tribune Herald reported. The others decided to hold back based on safety or other concerns. Location owner Brett Rhodes said the company doesn’t mandate the vaccine, but strongly recommends it.

“Personally, I don’t think it’s right for us to require our people to get it,” Rhodes told the newspaper. “There may be a time it may be required once it’s more proven, but at this time, no.” (For more on the legality of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for staff, see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXIX, No. 45.)

“We are … concerned about early reports that a significant portion of staff are unwilling or hesitant to take the vaccine,” says National Association for Home Care & Hospice President William Dombi.

Chain BAYADA Home Health Care saw this problem early on, relates Chief Government Affairs Office David Totaro. When the company surveyed its field staff in mid- December on who would like to receive the vaccine, only 28 percent of nurses and aides said yes.

Now, BAYADA’s most recent survey indicates about 65 percent of those staff wish to receive the vaccine. “A lot has changed in three weeks,” Totaro notes.

While public discourse and examples such as high-profile vaccinations for Dr. Anthony Fauci and politicians have helped pave the way, Totaro credits an education campaign BAYADA ran with helping to sway staff opinion.

In addition to disseminating factual information about the vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources, BAYADA publicized its managers receiving vaccines. Seeing people they knew taking part in the process seemed to allay some employees’ fears, Totaro says.BAYADA also familiarized staff with the follow-up process involved in getting vaccinated, under which public health and other staff check in with recipients daily to monitor any possible side effects.

“Information has been the best tool to help staff make the right decision,” Dombi advises. “Support from the employer is needed too.”

Where it’s possible, agencies will see best success when they can arrange vaccination clinics for their staff, or at least make their appointments for them, experts counsel.

Meanwhile, home care advocates are eager to see the vaccination ramp up overall. Some of the problems home care providers and their staff are having accessing vaccinations is due to federal and state supply issues and being able to predict where doses will be available at what time, notes Roger Noyes with the Home Care Association of New York State.

“We do not have the supply of vaccine to complete all of the Phase1A prioritization,” stresses Marcia Tetterton, head of the Virginia Association for Home Care and Hospice. “Virginia is receiving 110,000 doses per week. It will take approximately 17 mission doses to vaccinate all Virginians. Virginia is ready to vaccinate the public. We need more vaccine.”