Reviewed by Clare Marlin, MS, RN, CIC, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, IL
Rehabilitation settings may foster an increased risk in the transmission of respiratory illnesses among patients, when compared with the acute care setting, due to the use of shared therapeutic environments, group treatments, and interdisciplinary assessments, which can complicate patient outcomes thereby prolonging hospitalization.
Implementing a quality improvement initiative through utilization of an interdisciplinary communication approach, the research team constructed an influenza and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination prompt identifying acute care setting patients potentially eligible for such vaccinations who were likely to transfer to the rehabilitation setting by creating a report, which was escalated via e-mail to interdisciplinary teams.
The prompt increased the vaccination rate prior to setting transfer between the baseline and intervention periods of 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, respectively, with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rate increasing from 2.0% to 10.4% and the influenza vaccination rate increasing from 3.3% to 11.6%. The infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in the rehabilitation setting decreased during the intervention period, compared to the baseline year, with no significant difference for the influenza infection rate.
The researchers acknowledge study limitations include: 1. The prompt would need to be implemented among all acute care settings to augment its impact within a single rehabilitation setting to which patients transfer; 2. The rehabilitation setting vaccination rates were not assessed. Overall, the researchers correlate the prompt, and increase in vaccinations, to indicate patients vaccinated in the acute care setting before transferring to the rehabilitation setting had an 80% decreased risk of viral respiratory infection within the rehabilitation setting.
Reference:
Linkenheld, A., Williams, V. R., Chan, K., Carating, H., Marchesano, R., Do, J., … Leis, J. A. (2025). Impact of daily prompt to vaccinate inpatients awaiting rehabilitation against SARS-CoV-2 and influenza. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 46(2), 206–208. doi:10.1017/ice.2024.221