Pharmacy-Driven Vaccine Clinic to Reduce Number of Children Missing School | ASHP Midyear
Researchers presented the community-wide benefits of a collaborative pharmacy-driven vaccine clinic in an urban setting.
Using a collaborative approach with the assistance of pharmacists and physicians, the introduction of a community-based vaccination clinic has created the possibility for a significant reduction in students missing school because of their lack of vaccinations. The benefits of the clinic pivotal to this study showed that scaling up collaborative vaccine clinics can result in a significantly greater vaccine uptake, according to a poster presented at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) 2024 Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition, held December 8 to 12 in New Orleans, Lousiana.1
“Despite state legislation requiring certain vaccines for school-aged children, post-pandemic national immunization rates have declined to lower than pre-pandemic levels while vaccine exemption rates trended upwards. Locally, this has caused an increased number of children to be removed from school, disproportionately affecting those impacted by racial disparities and other social determinants of health,” wrote authors of the poster.
As post-pandemic vaccination rates decline, more and more children are missing school because of their inability to meet immunization requirements. | image credit: Halfpoint / stock.adobe.com
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With the creation of a community vaccine clinic, researchers hoped to develop an approach to the declining rates of childhood vaccination in the US. From 2017 to 2021, for children aged 35 months or below, 75.5% of Non-Hispanic White children received all recommended vaccines. Rates for Hispanic and Black children, however, fell behind at 69.9% and 66.5% respectively, according to State Health Access Data Assistance Center statistics.2
In the ASHP researchers’ study, their primary goal was creating a pharmacy-driven vaccination clinic through collaboration with a nearby community hospital. As a long-term goal following the clinic’s creation, they aimed to improve childhood vaccine rates, which would in turn improve the displacement of underserved children from their schools because of vaccination status.
“This prospective interventional case study was conducted at a 200-bed non-profit community hospital in an urban Midwestern city. An Immunization Subcommittee was formed, consisting of 4 pharmacists, 2 physicians, 2 information technology specialists, and rotating clinic managers and Vaccine for Children (VFC) coordinators,” they continued.1
With an emphasis on childhood vaccination rates for individuals commonly faced with racial disparities, researchers decided to refine their cohort even further to focus on the local refugee population. Looking to the future of collaborative vaccine clinics, researchers’ secondary goal was to ensure the clinic was replicable so that other non-profit organizations and health care systems can easily adapt them going forward.
After the creation of a pharmacy-driven, community-based vaccine clinic, the hospital in conjunction with the clinic completed an additional 700 vaccinations. All required by the Iowa State Legislature for children to attend school, the vaccinations that pharmacists and physicians completed included diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, hepatitis B, measles-mumps-rubella, varicella, ACWY meningococcal vaccines, and the inactivated polio vaccine.
From the staff who administered vaccines to those who assisted in marketing the vaccine clinic, this study’s results showed the ability of various health care providers to team up in collaboration and address a growing issue in the community. As long as communities possess the resources and willingness to create a vaccine clinic like the one explored in this study, health care providers and policymakers nationwide have the opportunity to improve childhood vaccination rates.
“Following completion of the clinic, we anticipate a reduction in the number of students displaced from school due to missing vaccinations. Following the event, the Immunization Subcommittee plans to review its successes and challenges in order to finalize a replicable workflow process. Future plans include partnering with other local non-profit organizations and schools to coordinate pharmacy-driven community vaccine clinics on at least [a] quarterly basis,” concluded the authors.1
READ MORE: Immunization Resource Center
Follow along with our coverage of the 2024 ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition here.
