Health care facilities considering mandating employee vaccinations face trade-off difficulties. Although more vaccinations will directly reduce the spread of disease within the facility, the imposition of mandates may also cause reluctant employees to quit, which could harm patient care. To study this trade-off, we use comprehensive administrative data covering nearly all nursing homes in the US, including records based on the estimated 500 million daily nursing charges and weekly data on COVID transmissions and deaths at each facility. We use a multivariate framework to estimate the impact of employer-imposed vaccination prescriptions in 581 nursing homes on disease prevalence, employment outcomes, and several patient care metrics. Although the directive has slightly increased the number of employees, the results have been concentrated among employees who work less than 20 hours per week, and have led to a reduction of less than two minutes per patient day. In addition, there is only limited evidence of low levels of care in community centers for commonly monitored conditions such as patient falls, pressure ulcers, or urinary tract infections. In contrast, implementing a vaccination mandate led to a significant increase in vaccination of workers in mandated areas, which directly led to a small transfer of reductions in patient mortality from COVID. We estimate that the vaccination orders saved the life of one patient in every two centers that we authorized, a great result considering that the average place has about 100 beds. Our results suggest that the health benefits of mandates far outweigh the costs in terms of reduced patient care due to staff turnover.
Yes. For some of you, it’s time to read it and cry. Here is the full paper on
Source link