Latest CME Bulletin Looks at Immunization Registries

One of the most helpful tools a family medicine practice can use to improve vaccination rates is an immunization registry. Learn more about the use of registries by reading the latest issue of the Academy's CME Bulletin, "Using an Immunization Registry to Improve Vaccination Rates." The issue now is available online; a printed version is being mailed to active and resident members.

Although a practice-based registry may benefit patients within that practice, it can't track immunization coverage over a wide area, the CME Bulletin says. But participation in a population-based registry, such as a state registry, can offer insight into the vaccination coverage of the entire area, highlight locales with low coverage, and identify needed interventions -- while also tracking coverage of patients within the practice.

The bulletin also notes that getting more children enrolled in population-based immunization registries is a goal of Healthy People 2010, the federal government's set of health objectives for the nation to achieve in this decade. However, only 44 percent of private vaccination sites supplied information to an immunization registry between July and December 2005. "This underscores the need for all family medicine practices to routinely use a registry if one is available in the community, as well as the need to increase the number of children who are enrolled in a registry," says the bulletin.

This CME Bulletin issue is related to the Academy's 2008 Annual Clinical Focus on infectious disease. The issue is supported by an educational grant from Every Child by Two, or ECBT, which received funding from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. ECBT was co-founded by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter (previously First Lady of Georgia) and former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumpers, who have been working to increase immunizations since their husbands were governors. ECBT's mission includes fostering a systematic way to immunize all children by age 2.

Members can earn up to 0.5 Prescribed CME credit by reading this Bulletin issue and completing and submitting the self-assessment quiz and evaluation.