Look for our Special Vaccination Issue!

• 1/19/2010
• Author: Jim Parker
• Category: Perspectives on Patient Safety Blog
• 2227 Views
• 0 Comments
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The February issue of Perspectives on Patient Safety is our Special Vaccination Issue.
 
The issue includes an article about JCR’s successful Flu Vaccination Challenge, which promotes influenza vaccination among health care workers. (See my previous blog  for more details.)
 
The issue also features a discussion with Kristin L. Nichol, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., about strategies for communicating with adult patients about vaccinations. Nichol is a professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota and chief of Medicine at the V.A. Medical Center in Minneapolis, Nichol has more than 100 publications under her belt related to adult vaccines. She also is a member of the National Coalition for Adult Immunization Advisory Committee, and is an ex officio member of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Be sure to check out the February issue to read Nichol’s insights on how to reach adult patients who may be reticent to receive vaccines or may not know they need them.
 
The timeliness of this issue hit home when, shortly after planning the February issue, I flipped through a recent issue of Discover magazine. Appropriately enough, I was sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room at the time.  The magazine was ranking what they considered the 10 most significant science stories of the decade. Their pick for the most significant science story was headlined “Vaccine Paranoia.”
 
Resistant to vaccination has been growing in the United States for a variety of reasons including fear of side effects, the growing popularity of “natural” or alternative remedies, and the mistaken belief among many adults that vaccines are just for children.
 
Ironically, part of the reason that some Americans do not realize the importance of vaccination may be the fact that vaccines have been so effective in preventing illnesses.  The United States is no longer plagued with deadly epidemics of polio, measles, and small pox. Consequently, Americans are no longer terrified of contracting these illnesses.
 
A few examples: 

• • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as recently as 1989-1991 more than 55,000 measles cases occurred in the United States, causing 120 deaths.  Thanks to vaccinations, measles no longer circulates in the United States or anywhere in the Western hemisphere.
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• • As of 20 years ago, nearly 20,000 Americans contracted invasive bacterial meningitis every year. In 2010, a physician training to become a pediatrician will probably never see a case of that illness during the course of his or her career, thanks to vaccination.
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• • A rubella virus epidemic in the 1960s resulted in more than 20,000 infants being born deaf, blind, afflicted with heart disease, developmental disabilities, or other birth defects. In 2010, rubella is no longer endemic to the United States.
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  An unfortunate side effect to this success: Without these epidemics, the vaccinations that make this safety possible no longer seem like such a priority. This kind of complacency has the potential to undo historic public health successes.
   
  I’d like to hear from you. Do you talk to your adult patients about vaccines? How do you broach the subject? How do they respond?
   
  Note: Also in February look to a piece authored by Seth Baker M.D., M.P.H., Michael Darin, M.D., and Omar Lateef, D.O., physicians from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, about the importance of taking a multidisciplinary approach to morbidity and mortality conferences.