Two Boston hospitals mandating flu shots for workers

Two of Boston’s largest teaching hospitals will require all employees who have contact with patients to get a flu vaccine this fall or face suspension or possibly termination.

The two, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Boston, are part of a 10-hospital coalition that pledged in July to adopt policies “as quickly as logistically feasible’’ to mandate seasonal flu vaccines for all health care workers “as a condition of employment.’’

The hospital rules are aimed at keeping workers healthy so they do not spread the flu to patients and also to ensure that a large number of caregivers do not get sick in the middle of a flu outbreak, when hospitals could be inundated with patients.