Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

9 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY EEOC sues Saint Thomas Health over mandatory flu shot policy By Harrison Cook T he U.S. Equal Employment Opportuni- ty Commission filed a lawsuit against Nashville, Tenn.-based Saint omas Health Sept. 28, alleging Murfreesboro, Tenn.- based Saint omas Rutherford Hospital vio- lated federal law by ordering an employee to receive a flu shot despite his religious beliefs. Saint omas Health requires all workers to receive an annual flu shot, which includes employees from TouchPoint Support Ser- vices — one of Saint omas Rutherford Hospital's food and environmental services providers, according to the EEOC. In 2013 and 2014, Saint omas Health al- lowed the TouchPoint employee at the center of the lawsuit to wear a protective mask in- stead of receiving a flu shot because of his re- ligious beliefs. When the employee requested to again forego the flu shot in 2015, Saint omas Health turned down his request and fired the employee aer he refused to get vaccinated, according to the EEOC. "For several years, [Saint omas Health] accommodated the employee's religious belief," Delner Franklin-omas, director of the EEOC's Memphis District Office, said in the press release. "en, [Saint omas Health] refused to accommodate his religious belief. An employer should not force an employee to choose between employment and his religious belief unless doing so would cause an undue hardship to the employer." n How Christiana Care administered 7K+ flu shots to employees in 1 day By Mackenzie Bean W ilmington, Del.-based Christiana Care Health System held a mass flu vaccination campaign for employees across more than 70 healthcare locations in four states on Oct. 11. Christiana Care usually vaccinates its nearly 12,000-employ- ee workforce over a span of several weeks. This year's effort represents the most ambitious employee flu vaccination cam- paign in the health system's history. "The whole goal is to find a way to keep employees safe, so we can protect our patients and visitors from getting the flu," Hiran Ratnayake, senior manager of media relations for Chris- tiana Care, told Becker's. "We wanted to do it in a way that was easier for them." The health system set up flu vaccination stations at Newark, Del.-based Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital. Christiana Care also relied on a roving team to drop off flu shot kits at its satellite facilities in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey during the campaign. As of Oct. 11 at 9 p.m., the health system had vaccinated 7,597 employees, according to Mr. Ratnayake. The campaign, which used the hashtag #hitmewithyourflush- ot, included guest appearances from local mascots, therapy dogs and radio hosts to provide entertainment for employees waiting to receive a flu shot. The vaccination effort also served as a drill in case the health system ever needs to vaccinate its entire workforce in re- sponse to a bioterrorism attack. "It was a good way to test out how much we can do and see where we succeeded," said Mr. Ratnayake. "That's why we decided to take on this ambitious effort." n How DNA tests can help physicians detect infectious diseases faster By Megan Knowles H ospitals are looking to genetic sequencing ser- vices to identify pathogens that make patients sick, Wired reported. Karius, a life sciences company focusing on infectious disease diagnostics with genomics, uses DNA tests that deliver results quicker than traditional lab methods. "This is pretty bleeding-edge stuff," said Joel Dudley, PhD, director of the Mount Sinai Institute for Next Gen- eration Healthcare in New York City. But if scientists solely look to sequencing and soft- ware to identify microbes from DNA, they first need to develop massive genetic databases that evolve with the pathogens. "We're just beginning to get data sets big enough to have clinical utility," Dr. Dudley said. "So there's still work to be done. But it's a very promising approach for getting diagnoses more quickly." Traditional lab tests require nurturing bacteria in a warm salt-sugar bath for days, and physicians routinely start patients on an intense antibiotics course as they await the results, fueling antibiotic resistance. "The pharma industry worked so hard to brew all these great therapies, but we don't know which ones to use," said Karius co-founder and CEO Mickey Kertesz. "If we can cover a broad range of microbes in a single test, then we can look at everything at once and only treat what shows up. That would be a huge paradigm shift from how [infectious disease physi- cians] currently think." n

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