Improved immunization programs receive grants

(NAPS)—Whether it’s updating children’s immunizations before school or getting them immunized against seasonal viruses, it’s important for parents and medical professionals alike to make sure children in their communities are up to date with their immunizations.
 The American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation (AAFP Foundation), through the support of a grant from Wyeth Vaccines, has awarded grants to family residency programs that identified and developed solutions to increase childhood immunization rates in their communities — that may be helpful to families everywhere. 
 One of the award winners is the Smoky Hill Family Medicine Residency Program in Kansas. Director Robert S. Freelove, M.D., and his team won the Most Improved award for improving their immunization system and, in turn, increasing immunization rates in their community.
 Kansas immunization rates rank below the national average,  and within this residency program, less than 85 percent of children were receiving all seven of the vaccinations required for children 19 to 35 months old. With families frequently moving in and out of the community, the program faced another challenge: adequately tracking the immunization status of all children. It was crucial for Dr.
Freelove and his team to transform their current system to increase their vaccination rates and maintain a healthy patient population.

Enhanced Immunization
Screenings
 First, the residency program began performing immunization screenings at every office visit and developed an efficient approach to make immunization visits as short and as positive an experience as possible for the children and their parents. The team now prepares the vaccines prior to the child’s appointment so they can be administered quickly with minimal waiting.

Appointed
Immunization Nurse
 The program also appointed an “immunization nurse” to lead and maintain the immunization program. The nurse’s role includes identifying children in need of immunizations, working with parents to develop catch-up immunization schedules, managing office vaccine inventory and entering immunization information into an electronic immunization registry. 

Used Immunization
Registry
 Finally, the residency program took advantage of the Kansas Web IZ immunization registry to accurately track pediatric patients’ immunizations. This practice allowed the team to get immunization records of patients moving into the community easily and ensured that the records of children moving away also were complete. 

 Improving childhood immunization rates is critical to enhancing the health of all children and families, and the AAFP Foundation hopes that the positive changes implemented by the Smoky Hill Family Medicine Residency Program will inspire other physicians and their office staffs to improve their immunization systems too. 
 For more information, including a tip sheet of best practices from past winners, visit www.aafpfoundation.org/wyethimmunization.