SUPPLEMENT
Improving Vaccination Rates for the 2018-2019 Influenza Season
Here's what you need to know to increase the influenza vaccination rate in your practice.
Supplement sponsor: American Academy of Family Physicians.
Fam Pract Manag. 2019 May-June;26(3):17-20.
Preventive medicine is critical to help people live longer, healthier lives and keep health care costs down. Promoting influenza immunizations among your patients can significantly contribute to these outcomes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during the 2017-2018 flu season alone, the influenza vaccine prevented 7.1 million illnesses, 3.7 million medical visits, 109,000 hospitalizations, and 8,000 deaths associated with the flu.1
While these results indicate the significant benefits of current influenza vaccination, there is still a need for improved vaccination rates. For the same 2017-2018 flu season, nearly 58% of children2 and only 37% of adults3 received the vaccination. This was a 6% decline for adults from the previous season and their lowest rate since the CDC began recording official data in the 2009-2010 flu season.3
This organizational supplement summarizes information and resources the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) develops, utilizes, and disseminates to family physicians and their health care teams to increase influenza vaccination rates. The supplement focuses on the 2018-2019 influenza season to include:
• Composition changes,
• Recommendation changes,
• Vaccine choices by age,
• Communicating with patients,
• Forming a plan.
Copyright © 2019 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP. Contact
fpmserv@aafp.org for copyright questions and/or permission requests.
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