COVID-19 News for Employees

Considering the rapidly increasing rate of COVID-19 infections in our community and medical center, VUMC is reimplementing required masking in all indoor, non-clinical areas of VUMC regardless of vaccination status. As before, masking is also required in all clinical areas and on shuttles. These requirements apply to all employees, patients, trainees, and visitors.

Based on updated CDC COVID-19 booster guidelines and VUMC’s review of the evidence, VUMC will offer a second booster of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to eligible individuals, ages 50 and over, who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

In this video message, Dr. Jeff Balser addresses the recent conviction of a former nurse, VUMC’s culture of safety, and offers the latest on COVID’s impact on the medical center. Read the transcript.

Dr. Jeff Balser, president and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, outlines recent changes to COVID-19 guidelines that affect all VUMC employees, along with steps being taken to increase staffing.  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released new guidelines for measuring and categorizing COVID-19 risk in communities across the United States. These new guidelines take into account hospitalizations for COVID-19, new cases of COVID-19 and overall availability of hospital beds. Counties in Middle Tennessee are now classified as low or medium risk for COVID-19.

Currently, we have not changed limitations on meetings and gatherings: everyone must stay masked, and there should be no eating during the meeting. We're closely tracking the following metrics of COVID-19 spread in the community, which the CDC uses to measure rate of transmission in a community:

Effective Feb. 14, VUMC will consolidate locations where COVID-19 vaccines are available. This change will lessen the significant administrative burden of COVID-19 vaccine oversight required at each location while still providing easy COVID-19 vaccine availability at central VUMC locations. COVID-19 vaccination is available in many locations throughout our community as well.

As the demand for COVID-19 testing begins to decline, VUMC plans to close its COVID-19 testing location at One Hundred Oaks and in the "EPod" on the 21st Avenue campus. The last day of operation for each site is Sunday, Feb. 6.  VUMC employees who need COVID-19 tests should go to Occupational Health's Express Care or the Glenrose testing site after that date. Weekend hours will be added at the Glenrose location.

Based on CDC recommendations, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) for several months has strongly urged employees to get a COVID-19 booster vaccination, if they are eligible to receive one. Given the exponential spread of the omicron variant, and the evidence that boosted individuals are more protected against infection with this strain, VUMC will now require all employees eligible to receive a COVID-19 booster vaccination to do so by Feb. 14, 2022, unless they have an approved exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination requirement.

In this week's video message, Dr. Jeff Balser, President and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, talks about the COVID-19 omicron variant stretching the limits of VUMC’s hospitals and its people, and the newly announced booster requirement for eligible employees to help keep everyone well.