Hospitals roll back vaccine mandates, citing staffing concerns. But is that the right move?

Welcome back to Path to Recovery, a newsletter that will bring you weekly conversations on how the health care profession will recover from one of the most significant crises of our time. Click "subscribe" above or follow along using #PathtoRecovery.

For more coverage, follow the hashtags below. Here’s what we’re talking about this week.

Before we get started today, I’d like to introduce you to the newly-created Path to Recovery group, which is open to healthcare professionals (whether you’re a clinician or on the business side) to discuss top-of-mind issues with others who work in the field. If you’re interested, request to join!

Now let’s jump in.

#CovidVaccines Vaccine mandates are one of the most controversial debates in health care today. On the one hand, administrators believe that they’re the best defense to prevent severe disease and keep staff and patients healthy. But at a time of severe staffing shortages, employees are using their clout to push back on vaccination requirements.

For some health systems, the staffing urgency is taking precedence. A number of hospital networks, including for-profit companies HCA and Tenet Healthcare as well as the Cleveland Clinic, have dialed back mandates to ease staffing concerns.

Vaccination rates have been highest for physicians and advanced practice clinicians; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July put the number at 75.1%. For doctors in particular, the vaccination rate exceeded 96% by early June, according to the American Medical Association.

Nurses and aides have been slower to get their shots. The July CDC study found that 56.7% of nurses and 45.6% of aides were vaccinated. But one month later, the American Nurses Association published survey results showing that 88% of nurses were either vaccinated or planned to be, and 59% supported a mandate.

I posted a poll this week to get a sense of how my network feels about hospitals rolling back vaccine mandates. More than 60% of respondents said it’s a bad move for public health, while 15% said staffing concerns should be a greater consideration and 18% thought a mandate was a bad idea to begin with.

To date, the percentage of nurses who have actually quit or been suspended due to a vaccine mandate has been low, around 1 to 2 percent. And some health care leaders believe the vaccines have helped with staffing by reducing illness and absenteeism.

So why all the consternation?

Perhaps that speaks to how bad the shortage has become; hospitals can’t even afford to lose 1% of their workforce. But if you have other ideas, let me know in the comments below.

#MentalHealth I wrote earlier this month about how artificial intelligence is reshaping the radiology profession, and its potential applications in other fields. Here’s one we haven’t talked about yet: its role in psychotherapy. AI is helping in language processing, using machine learning to tease out from transcripts why some therapists are more effective than others – with a goal, of course, of ultimately developing best practices.?

It’s a different angle from how we usually think of digital mental health, or the growing number of patient-focused apps that aim to either connect them with therapists or provide at-home support. But either way, the same question remains: how do we know whether these tools are any good?

#Healthcarein2022 I remember Dec. 7, 2020 vividly. That was the date my husband, a physician, got an email from his employer stating that they expected to be able to vaccinate all clinical staff by the end of the following month. The vaccines had finally arrived in our corner of the world. Just one more month and then we’d see the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I felt so many emotions that day, but joy most of all. Hope.?

Of course, the arrival of the vaccines was not the end of the misery, especially for those on the frontlines of treating covid cases. So what will the third year of the pandemic mean for mental health?

Dr. Robert Pearl, former head of Kaiser’s medical group and now a healthcare commentator, weighs in in an article, “How Year 3 of Covid-19 Will Mess With Our Minds.” The virus is still raging, and so is the grief, depression and anxiety it’s created in its wake. Read his piece for his take on what comes next.

What do you see ahead in 2022?