Private businesses with more than 100 employees could learn a lesson from Rhode Island’s health care facilities.
When Gov. Daniel J. McKee set an Oct. 1 deadline for health workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, many of those facilities launched outreach campaigns, targeting employees who were leery of getting the shots. In the end, few people refused to be vaccinated, officials say.
Now companies with more than 100 employees are subject to pending federal vaccine requirements from the Biden administration, mandating that workers either receive the vaccine or get tested once a week. And they could follow the same game plan.
This message was shared during Providence Business News’ 2021 Fall Health Care Summit held on Oct. 20, as health care and employment law panelists convened virtually to share their insights on the fallout from vaccine mandates in the Ocean State and how employers have made progress with holdouts.
Town hall-style meetings about the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine for employee and client safety, and more-targeted small-group meetings, and gathering with faith leaders and pregnancy specialists have proven effective at Rhode Island hospitals and other health care facilities now under a state mandate, said panelist Matthew Reeber, who specializes in employment law as a partner at Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC.
“I think frankly that’s something that non-health care employers need to share,” Reeber said. “With this issue, and trying to beat back some of these employees who don’t want to get vaccinated and take an activist position, I think that’s the remedy, those meetings.”
At Lifespan Corp., ultimately 200 people from a workforce of 17,000 spread across several medical facilities are no longer employed due to their refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Lisa Abbott, Lifespan senior vice president for human resources and community affairs, said “losing anyone is difficult” due to staffing shortages that were already occurring during the pandemic, but outreach efforts boosted the vaccination rate from 70% at the end of August to 99% by October. Some employees were more resistant than others, she said, but Lifespan looked into factors influencing them, including religion and pregnancy, and tried to tailor its outreach to those concerns.
Abbott also said the company’s town halls were highly attended and “moved the needle” among vaccine holdouts.
These efforts have helped prevent shutdowns of elective procedures and surgeries, she said, and the vaccine mandate didn’t exacerbate preexisting staffing problems “as much as you might think.”
“But it’s challenging nonetheless,” said Abbott, who also said Lifespan is ready to welcome back any of those unvaccinated workers if they get the COVID-19 shot.
‘There is a lot of misinformation out there.’
MICHELE LEDERBERG, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island executive vice president, chief administrative officer and chief legal officer
Reeber, who has provided legal advice to companies implementing vaccine mandates, said Lifespan’s targeted response is a model for private companies across the country with 100 employees that would be subject to the COVID-19 vaccine/testing mandate that Biden in September tasked the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration with formulating and enforcing.
“We have this core group concerned about religious exemptions? Bring in a faith leader,” Reeber said. “We have this core group concerned about the impact of the vaccine on someone who is pregnant or could become pregnant. We bring in a doctor in that specialty. Those are the lessons we’ve learned. They’re very helpful and effective.”
Reeber said the “very few” legal challenges filed by vaccine opponents working at Rhode Island health care facilities show that this emphasis on targeted persuasion is “effective from a risk management perspective as well.”
Along those lines, Reeber also cautioned employers against publishing job advertisements that explicitly require applicants to be vaccinated for COVID-19, noting that a process for potential accommodations for religious and medical exemptions must be in place, due to U.S. law regarding “disparate impact” discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for someone to come in and make a case,” Reeber said.
Reeber and Abbott were joined on the panel by Michele Lederberg, executive vice president, chief administrative officer and chief legal officer at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island; Thomas McCarthy, executive director of Rhode Island’s COVID-19 Response Team; Dr. Robert MacArthur, chief medical officer at Commonwealth Care Alliance; and Dr. Christopher Ottiano, medical director at Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is one of those private businesses that is preparing to comply with Biden’s planned national mandate.
Lederberg said the company originally announced a Nov. 1 deadline for employee vaccination but has since extended that to Dec. 8, which she said is “consistent” with Biden’s subsequent announcement for private companies such as Blue Cross. Lederberg said the struggle with holdouts is fueled by falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there,” said Lederberg, adding that the company brought in experts from the R.I. Department of Health to speak to employees about the importance of the vaccination.
Lederberg said the company still has “a small number of associates” who are not yet vaccinated, but there will not likely be any long-term staffing issues resulting from losing vaccine holdouts.
McCarthy said a surprising amount of health care workers who have seen firsthand the damage inflicted by the virus have been susceptible to misinformation or didn’t feel compelled to get the shot because they felt they weren’t personally in danger.
However, the state mandate and “continued engagement” from public health experts and employers led many to change their minds, with a 30% increase in the amount of vaccinated health care workers from 44,000 at the beginning of September to 57,000 now, he said.
“What that really drove home for me is that continued engagement is absolutely critical,” he said.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
