Instituting a multi-pronged clinical and business protocol to increase primary care influenza rates
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Low immunization rates put the herd immunity of communities at risk. Illness from influenza is responsible for a large number of hospitalizations and deaths annually. Influenza vaccination is the best way to reduce flu-related illness and death. Higher influenza vaccination rates within a population can reduce the potential of a flu outbreak and offer protection for vulnerable populations. This quality improvement (QI) project focuses on improving late-season flu immunizations from January through March 2020 in an adult urban primary care office by maximizing existing clinic resources. Guiding conceptual and theoretical models for the QI project were the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model and the Health Belief Model (HBM). Upon completion of the QI project, no single intervention stood out as the best method to improve influenza immunization rates. The improvement in influenza rates seemed to be secondary to all the interventions being used together: provider and patient education, walk in immunization availability, social media promotion, and a late season push to capture unvaccinated patients. Keywords: flu, flu shot, herd immunity, immunization, influenza, influenza immunization, primary care, vaccinations, vaccine