We interviewed 493 members of the Physicians Consulting Network to estimate the number of physician-reported influenza vaccination reminders during the 2010–2011 influenza season.
Issuance of Patient Reminders for Influenza Vaccination by U.S.-based Primary Care Physicians During the First Year of Universal Influenza Vaccination Recommendations
Published in: American Journal of Public Health, v. 104, no. 6, June 2014, p. e60-e62
Posted on RAND.org on June 01, 2014
Read More
Access further information on this document at American Journal of Public HealthThis article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
Research Question
- What percentage of primary care physicians issued vaccination reminders during the 2010– 2011 influenza season, the first influenza season after universal vaccination recommendations were introduced?
To estimate the number of physician-reported influenza vaccination reminders during the 2010–2011 influenza season, the first influenza season after universal vaccination recommendations for influenza were introduced, we interviewed 493 members of the Physicians Consulting Network. Patient vaccination reminders are a highly effective means of increasing influenza vaccination; nonetheless, only one quarter of the primary care physicians interviewed issued influenza vaccination reminders during the first year of universal vaccination recommendations, highlighting the need to improve office-based promotion of influenza vaccination.
Key Finding
- Only about 1 in 4 of interviewed US-based primary care physicians reported issuing patient reminders for influenza vaccination during the 2010-2011 vaccination season.
Recommendation
Increasing the issuance of patient reminders for influenza vaccination should be a focus of future improvement efforts.
This article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
Our mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior. To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit www.rand.org/about/principles.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.