Healthcare worker influenza vaccination in nursing homes.

To the Editor: The report on “Healthcare Worker Influenza Vaccination in Nursing Homes”1 is very interesting. Campbell et al1 reported that “Given that [nursing homes] generally have low employee influenza vaccination rates, it may be necessary to target lowperforming facilities to achieve substantial improvements.” In fact, the problem of prevention for influenza among paramedical personnel and students is an important issue that is usually forgotten.2,3 To increase influenza vaccination is the aim of present infection control. Winston et al4 proposed an effective method to increase influenza vaccination rate among health careworkers: the “mandated H1N vaccination.” Winston et al4 noted that “the mandate helped to increase [health care worker] influenza vaccination rates dramatically.” Naleway et al5 also noted that health care workers “said they would have been vaccinated if required by their employer.” To increase the vaccination rate in nursing homes, the mandatory vaccination policy should be applied for all centers and targeting “low-performing facilities,” as suggested by Campbell et al,1 might not give much advantage.