Screening hospital employees for measles immunity is more cost effective than blind immunization.
OBJECTIVE
To examine alternative strategies in developing a cost-effective program to assure measles immunity among hospital employees.


METHODS
Observational.


METHODS
Referral teaching hospital.


METHODS
Eighteen hundred "established" hospital employees with potential patient contact and 630 newly hired hospital employees.


METHODS
Established employees born after 1 January 1957 and all newly hired employees were screened for serologic evidence of measles immunity and immunized if necessary.


METHODS
Cost analysis.


RESULTS
The cost of screening and directed immunization of established employees was $3.98 per employee compared with a potential cost of $10.03 to $42.80 per employee if all employees were "blindly" immunized with monovalent measles vaccine or trivalent mumps-measles-rubella vaccine. The cost of the screening and directed immunization of new employees was $2.42 per employee compared with potential costs of $8.30 to $39.34 per employee for blind immunization. These analyses assumed that varying percentages of employees would be able to produce documentation of having received a previous dose of vaccine or of having had measles.


CONCLUSIONS
In a large referral hospital, screening for measles immunity followed by directed immunization was considerably less expensive than immunizing all potentially susceptible employees.
Sellick
J A
JA
State University of New York, Buffalo.
Longbine
D
D
Schifeling
R
R
Mylotte
J M
JM
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000191:economics*; D008457:Measles / Q000191:economics* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009518:New York; D010564:Personnel, Hospital / Q000191:economics*; D012698:Serologic Tests / Q000191:economics; D014611:Vaccination / Q000191:economics*