COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for all ImpactLife blood center employees

The blood services provider ImpactLife is requiring all employees across its Midwest region to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

ImpactLife announced Friday that all 709 employees in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 1. Officials say they will consider requests for medical and religious exemptions.

Currently, the vaccination rate at ImpactLife is 48 percent, according to self-reported employee data.

The blood center joins other employers, including health care systems, government entities and other institutions nationwide that have implemented vaccine requirements in recent weeks as vaccination rates have stagnated nationwide. The announcement also comes as new coronavirus cases have surged to alarming rates, largely driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

“Our decision comes after several weeks of dialogue and deliberation, with feedback from key stakeholders across our organization,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Parejko said in a news release. “We believe this step will help ensure the safety of our staff and the ability to continue to provide our region’s blood supply as we work through the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The blood services provider — which was previously called the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center — provides blood products for 125 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin.

It operates 20 blood donation centers and hosts approximately 5,000 mobile blood drives annually across the four-state region.

Officials say the vaccination requirement is being implemented to ensure a safe work environment and “to provide clarity on employees’ vaccination status for blood donors, volunteers, vendors and hospitals served by ImpactLife.”

“These policies include our own ImpactLife staff who deliver blood to hospitals and who work on mobile blood drives hosted by the hospitals we serve,” Parejko said in the news release. “It has increasingly become more challenging to meet staffing requirements for blood drives where fully vaccinated staff are required by the host organization.”

Currently, ImpactLife policies state unvaccinated employees cannot come to work for 10 days following a known or suspected COVID-19 exposure. This has led to scheduling challenges for blood drives and other blood center operations, officials said.

Fully vaccinated employees can continue to work following exposure to the virus, as long as they don’t show symptoms.

“All of the available vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in randomized, controlled trials and their effectiveness has been repeatedly confirmed in real-world experience,” ImpactLife Chief Medical Officer Dr. Louis Katz said in a statement.

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