Teen vaccines: Where we are now, and how can we go further?
Dr. Bernstein and Dr. Bocchini also suggest that vaccine uptake could be boosted by a mental re-set of the office visit. “Missed opportunities for adolescent immunizations,” such as sick calls, are a prime example. “The majority of vaccines are administered during well-child visit [sports or camp physicals]. … However, acute care visits or sick visits in the patient-centered medical home are also an opportunity to deliver vaccines or to discuss upcoming vaccines,” they said.
Education and communication are essential to improving vaccine uptake, the report concludes. “Appropriate techniques for approaching adolescent patients and their parents in the office to encourage immunizations are important skills for healthcare providers. The key to increasing immunization rates and decreasing vaccine-preventable disease … is to focus on educating adolescents and strengthening health care providers’ recommendations by using all clinical opportunities to assess immunization status and provide needed vaccinations.”
Neither Dr Bernstein nor Dr. Bocchini had any financial disclosures.
Need help talking about teen vaccines? Check out these resources
The American Academy of Pediatrics offered the following resources designed to help clinicians communicate effectively when talking to patients and parents about vaccines:
• Talking to parents about the HPV vaccine. This website hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes a link to the latest vaccination recommendations, as well as a tip sheet with HPV vaccine talking points, a fact sheet on the vaccine’s safety data, and a video with four clinical vignettes that model effective communication.
• The HPV Champion Toolkit. This contains numerous resources to help clinicians learn to educate other health care professionals, discuss HPV vaccination with parents, and make practice changes to increase HPV vaccine uptake.
• You Are the Key to HPV Prevention. This CDC video presents up-to-date information on HPV infection and disease, the HPV vaccine, and ways to successfully communicate with patients and their parents about HPV vaccination.
• Adolescentvaccination.org. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases maintains a website is entirely devoted to adolescent vaccination issues. It contains resources for clinicians, and parents.
• Top Strategies for Increasing Vaccine Coverage. This is a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
• You Call the Shots. This is an interactive, Web-based immunization training course created by the CDC.
• Suggestions to Improve Your Immunization Services. This is a checklist of suggestions, by the Immunization Action.
msullivan@frontlinemedcom.com
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