Advocate Aurora Health announces COVID-19 vaccination requirement for team members

Downers Grove, IL and Milwaukee, WI – Advocate Aurora Health will require team members to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by Oct. 15, a decision that underlines safety as the system’s top priority.

“We are first and foremost a safe, clinical enterprise. Our ultimate duty is to protect the health and safety of our team members, patients and communities,” President and CEO Jim Skogsbergh told team members Wednesday in a video. “The data is overwhelming. This vaccine is safe, and it’s highly effective in preventing infection and even more so, serious illness and death.”

The decision comes as many care providers and organizations across the country have implemented such a requirement based on conclusive evidence that vaccines are safe, effective and critically important to saving lives and bringing an end to this pandemic.

As the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the country, Advocate Aurora inpatient COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased five-fold over the past three weeks, and the system’s test positivity rate is the highest it’s been since January.

“While COVID is far from gone, our story is still being written. Let this decision to mandate vaccines be another chapter in our book – one that says we have done everything we can to keep our patients, our communities and each other safe and healthy,” Skogsbergh said.

More than 340 million vaccine doses have been safely administered in the United States. Recent national data shows that nearly all recent COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths have occurred in the unvaccinated population.

With limited exceptions for specific religious or medical reasons, the requirement applies to all 75,000 team members in both Illinois and Wisconsin, including remote workers and those who don’t work directly with patients, as well as medical staff, students, volunteers and on-site vendors.

About Advocate Aurora Safe Care Promise 

Health and safety is our highest priority. The Advocate Aurora Safe Care Promise provides additional measures to protect patients and our team members, providing peace of mind at every step of your journey with us. In person or online, we are here to ensure safe, comfortable and convenient care. As the environment evolves and seasons change, we’ll be ready with measures to ensure you’re safe. 

About Advocate Aurora Health  

Advocate Aurora Health is one of the 12 largest not-for-profit, integrated health systems in the United States and a leading employer in the Midwest with 75,000 employees, including more than 22,000 nurses and the region’s largest employed medical staff and home health organization. A national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care, the system serves nearly 3 million patients annually in Illinois and Wisconsin across more than 500 sites of care. Advocate Aurora is engaged in hundreds of clinical trials and research studies and is nationally recognized for its expertise in cardiology, neurosciences, oncology and pediatrics. The organization contributed $2.2 billion in charitable care and services to its communities in 2019. We help people live well.  

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.