Just 39% of Frontline Healthcare Workers Have No Concerns about the Broader Community Receiving the COVID-19 Vaccine, According to New Research from Waggl


Illustration from Waggl's healthcare landing page

Waggl is the leading Employee Voice solution for Healthcare & Hospital Systems

“Nursing leaders have faced a significant degree of ongoing challenge with respect to the COVID-19 crisis, and they have valuable insight about the best way to ensure a successful community rollout,” said Michelle Cardinal, Deputy Managing Director, Programming, Opal Group.

Waggl, the most powerful Employee Voice platform for hospital systems, today released final results from its current “The Voice of Healthcare Workers” pulse, a dynamic resource that enables frontline healthcare workers to share real-time suggestions and insights with their peers about critical issues in healthcare today.

“The Voice of Healthcare Workers” collaborative pulse received thousands of votes from frontline healthcare workers, who were invited to add their voices to an important dialogue about the COVID-19 vaccination. The pulse consisted of three question statements and one open-ended question relating to the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination, built on Waggl’s Employee Voice platform, a real-time platform that quickly and easily enables organizations to measure and improve engagement with crowdsourcing and simple data visualizations to create more actionable dialogue between leaders and their teams.

“We deeply appreciate the opportunity for the registrants of the upcoming Chief Nursing Officer Summit, many of whom are directly involved with patient care, to add their voices to the ongoing dialogue about the vaccine,” said Michelle Cardinal, Deputy Managing Director, Programming, Opal Group. “Nursing leaders have faced a significant degree of ongoing challenge with respect to the COVID-19 crisis, and they have valuable insight about the best way to ensure a successful community rollout. As we’ve seen from this pulse, most frontline healthcare professionals believe that educating the public on the actual data from the trials will be critical.”

Waggl’s “The Voice of Healthcare Workers” pulse posed an open-ended question, “What is one suggestion you have to ensure a successful rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine to the broader community?” Crowdsourced responses were distilled into a ranked list. Here are the top five responses:

  • “Combat misinformation and establish confidence in the vaccine by educating the public on the actual data from the trials. People don’t seem to realize the vaccine has been studied in 20K people with robust safety and efficacy data. Also – government leadership on messaging the importance would help.”
  • “Transparency about the vaccine process and a clear unified message about the safety of the vaccine.”
  • “The more healthcare workers show that they trust the science behind the vaccine, the less the general public will fear it. Keep sharing your vaccination!”
  • “Making it free! Multiple creative venues like parking lots or drive-thru areas, run by hospitals/pharmacists. Just like when doing massive swab tests for COVID.”
  • “Community outreach. Go to people. Make it easy for them to get vaccinated. Pool resources and make available vaccines easily identifiable so people can find locations to vaccinate. Continual updates to locations, availability, and how to sign up for the prioritized groups. No waste!”

Waggl’s research indicates that 97% of respondents plan to receive the COVID-19 vaccination once it is made available to them, with some variation by geography, racial/ethnic identification and role. In aggregate, 74% of participants agreed with the statement, “My organization has provided clear communication about our vaccination plan, including when the vaccine will be made available to me,” with physicians (83%) and healthcare workers who have multiple roles (81%) responding more affirmatively than nurses (69%) and non-clinical healthcare workers (64%). The pulse results also indicate that 61% of healthcare workers have concerns about the broader community receiving the vaccine once it is made available to them, with significant variation according to geographic location. Among clinical nurses, 64% expressed concerns.

The most common themes emerging from this initial pulse include:

  • The importance of getting/receiving the vaccine
  • Safety and efficacy of the vaccine
  • Side effects
  • Clear communication
  • Community Outreach
  • Educating the public
  • Easy access
  • Transparency

“Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve continually witnessed unprecedented responsiveness and agility from our leading healthcare and hospital systems customers, including University of Utah Health, UCHealth, VA North Texas, and others,” said Michael Papay, Co-founder and CEO, Waggl. “They’ve used Waggl to ask their people important questions about topics ranging from how they could help with their safety and well-being, to how they could simplify their work and boost their effectiveness. This has undoubtedly fueled the resilience we’re seeing across so many organizations.”

In the keynote for Opal Group’s Chief Nursing Officer Annual Summit on January 20-21, Waggl Co-founder Adam Tanner will share additional results data and critical insights that can better inform Nursing Leaders and their organizations on vaccine rollout. Additional speakers include Marilyn Riley, Chief Nursing Officer, IU Health; Legay Naseath, Chief Nursing Officer, Banner Health ChurchHill Community Hospital; Lisa Romano, RN, MSN, Chief Nursing Officer, Cipher Health; Debra Garton, Chief Nursing Officer, OSS Health.

For more information about Waggl, please visit https://www.waggl.com/healthcare/.

About Waggl

Waggl is a real-time Employee Voice platform that quickly and easily enables organizations, including numerous prestigious healthcare systems, to measure and improve engagement with crowdsourcing and simple data visualizations to create more actionable dialogue between leaders and their teams. Inspired by the waggle dance honey bees do to communicate vital information, Waggl believes every voice matters. Unlike heavy surveys or basic pulse tools, Waggl is a dialogue-first approach to engagement that creates shared ownership through inclusive team-based action planning.

With a seasoned Executive Team and premiere customers including Freddie Mac, UCHealth, University of Utah Health, Paychex, Heineken, 3M, Mastercard, UCSF Medical Center, McGraw Hill, Taylor Morrison and Parsons, Waggl partners with leading enterprises to harness the collective intelligence of their people. For more information and an expanded customer list, please visit https://www.waggl.com.

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