The investigators compared the status quo (72% of employees with paid sick days stay home with flu, while 52% of those without sick days do not) to three other scenarios: (1) all employees have access to paid sick days, (2) all also have access to 1 flu day, or (3) all also have access to 2 flu days. The concept here is that employees are specifically paid to stay home when ill with influenza.
The findings:
--Universal paid sick days resulted in a 6% reduction in workplace transmission (applied to Allegheny County, Pa. [population 1.2 million] that is equivalent to nearly 4,000 fewer infections).
--Adding 1 flu day resulted in a 25% decrease in workplace transmission (15,000 infections averted)
--Adding 2 flu days resulted in a 39% decrease in workplace transmission (26,000 infections averted)
Bottom line: Efforts to reduce presenteeism (a horizontal infection prevention strategy) can have significant impact.
Implication: If we're really serious about reducing infections transmitted to patients in hospitals from staff, we must start thinking about how to reduce presenteeism. And that's a lot harder than firing health care workers who refuse to take their flu shot.
