MLMIC Vaccine Survey Reveals High Vaccine Compliance, Limited Staffing Issues

We recently sent a survey to our insured healthcare facilities to identify the impact of New York’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate on their operations. Thank you to all who provided us with information. The survey results revealed the following:

• Our responding facilities reported an overall 95% vaccine rate across their organizations.
  • Only one facility identified a vaccine rate of under 90% (89%)
• Most reporting insureds anticipate very few staff will ultimately forego the vaccine.
  • 75% of responding facilities reported that staff have left due to the vaccine mandate.
    • 33% of respondents reported suspending staff for vaccine refusal.
    • Among the few staff members declining vaccines, those who declined are spread relatively equally between clinical and non-clinical staff.
    • Overall, each organization reporting resignations or suspensions reported a low of 1 to a high of 46.
• There have been relatively few requests for exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccination.
  • Most facilities reported only a handful of requests for medical exemptions.
    • Many of these are requested by pregnant staff members.
  • Facilities reported anywhere from 0 to 5% of staff have requested religious exemptions from vaccination.
    • While it will be interesting to see if this percentage changes as challenges to the vaccine mandate work their way through the courts, it is important to note that facilities report their staff are vaccinated in overwhelming numbers (95% average).      
• Many strategies were used to convince staff to be vaccinated. These include:
  • staff meetings;
  • vaccine education sessions;
  • open forums to discuss vaccine hesitancy;
  • distribution of flyers, newsletters, emails and intranet messages;
  • daily messages encouraging vaccination;
  • individual staff outreach with offers to discuss concerns;
  • onsite walk-in vaccination centers;
  • vaccination teams rounding on each unit/office in the organization;
  • negotiation with collective bargaining units; and
  • outreach by senior leadership (CEOs and CMOs) with offers to contact leadership directly with concerns over vaccination.
• Staffing shortages have been systemic in healthcare long before the COVID-19 pandemic. While each facility reports high vaccine rates amongst their staff, decisions on vaccination, coupled with other factors leading to a decline in available staff, facilities have had to take steps to keep all services operational. Some of the steps reported to us include:
  • advertising for open positions;
  • re-allocating staff, including transferring staff from clinics to hospital services;
  • cross-training staff to allow for greater flexibility;
  • bonuses and overtime incentives;
  • use of agency staffing; and
  • training non-clinical staff to perform services where appropriate.
• Unfortunately, while most organizations reported little impact on their operations due to staffing issues, some have had to limit services. This includes:
  • closing primary care locations to re-purpose staff to acute care settings;
  • reducing the availability of urgent care, the number of available operating rooms and elective procedures; One facility reported a projected reduction in overall bed capacity due to staffing issues. Most are not anticipating reducing the number of beds, and some are monitoring the situation.
  • One facility reported the need to reduce, and unfortunately eliminate, some of their services due to staff resignations related to the vaccine mandate.
• Finally, in responding to our survey request, a few organizations identified other issues that are currently impacting their ability to provide healthcare to their communities. These include:
  • an inability to transfer patients to long term care and behavioral health facilities; and
  • an increase in disruptive behavior by patients and visitors, contributing to burnout amongst both clinical and non-clinical staff.

Ultimately, staff at our insured facilities have overwhelmingly chosen to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Facilities have taken numerous steps to convince their staff to be vaccinated. Small numbers of staff have either resigned or sought exemptions, both medical and religious. It does not appear from the data gathered that resignations related to the vaccine mandate or exemptions (medical or religious) will significantly contribute to staff shortages at our insureds. However, we are all well aware that there are systemic staff shortages in healthcare, and some of our insureds have had to modify their operations in order to maintain their service levels.

MLMIC remains committed to assisting its insureds with efforts to provide care and improve patient safety. We encourage all insureds to contact our Risk Management Department (800-275-6564) with any questions or concerns they may have on these issues. Also, please watch for our new education program in the works on addressing disruptive behavior across the continuum of care.