NEW YORK, NY December 04, 2007 —As winter arrives, so does the flu. In any number of places, you come across posters and public service announcements for flu vaccinations. Nurses with syringes rove around offices, local pharmacies schedule appointments and of course health clinics make sure anyone who wants a shot—gets one. This year, one group of employers is trying harder than ever to get people vaccinated against the flu virus, which kills an estimated 36-thousand Americans annually. WNYC’s Fred Mogul reports.

REPORTER: At Beth Israel on the east side of Manhattan, nurse Daisy Bartholomew is trying to inoculate -- and indoctrinate -- her colleagues on an Intensive Care Unit.

BARTHOLOMEW: You really cannot get the flu virus by getting a flu shot, and I really want to stress that.

REPORTER: Bartholomew is preaching to the converted. Mostly. One of them is genuinely concerned.

SAMANIEGO: They said the side-effects are really like you're having flu?

REPORTER: Concepcion Samaniego has been a patient care assistant at the hospital for 30 years. She’s never gotten a flu shot. Nurse Bartholomew tries to reassure her, but, like the vaccine itself, Bartholomew isn’t exactly 100-percent effective.

BARTHOLOMEW: There are people who get flu-like symptoms, but it's not the flu. You may develop a fever, but it's a low-grade fever.

REPORTER: Public health officials and hospital administrators are trying to reduce preventable illnesses in healthcare settings, which, by definition, are hotbeds of infection. The Greater New York Hospital Association and the 1199 healthcare workers union this year are training and deploying nearly 500 “infection prevention coaches” in 28 hospitals around the city. Coaches like Daisy Bartholomew try to make it easy for fellow workers to get their shots without leaving their work areas. And where there’s coaches, there’s teams, and competition and, at Beth Israel, at least, there’s prizes, too, says infection control chief Dr. Brian Koll.

KOLL: People get a little gold star, it's called "Caught Being Great!" And then they also get a coupon for Starbucks.... It can even be for a ‘super latte’ -- you know how hard we work!

REPORTER: Nationwide, about 40 percent of the staff at hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare settings get flu shots. That’s even worse than the 60-percent vaccination rate for seniors, says Dr. Carolyn Bridges of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bridges would like ALL the major target groups to get flu vaccine – the elderly, young children, people with cancer and HIV and other diseases -- and healthcare workers, who . . .

BRIDGES: …obviously should be the ones who are best informed about influenza and are likely to come into contact with people who are at high-risk for influenza complications.

REPORTER: There is not data definitively proving that vaccinating staff members significantly reduces hospital-based influenza. Flu vaccination is just one part of infection control, so it’s difficult to isolate in a cause-and-effect equation. But there is evidence that vaccinated healthcare personnel get sick less often. Beth Israel last year vaccinated 70 percent of its staff and hopes with the new coaches to reach 85 percent this year. Dr. Koll says combining that with improved efforts at hand-washing, sterilization and general cleanliness has decreased one benchmark infection rate from 4 percent to point-4 percent over the last four years.

KOLL: We can look at every type of infection we get -- urinary tract, bloodstream, surgical site or pneumonia -- what we have seen is drops in all these infections.

REPORTER: Concepcion Samaniego, the patient care assistant, says it’s all very persuasive. But still. She’s always been so healthy. Flu shots have never seemed necessary.

SAMANIEGO: I get sick, like everybody else . . . . but not sick, sick . . . for the patient . . . and I don't blame anybody, I just figured I get sick . . . in the street or something.

REPORTER: She says she’ll probably do it. But she’ll think about it a little more. And then decide.