Phone Call Reminders for Pediatric Influenza Vaccination

Abstract

The influenza vaccine is recommended annually for all children, adolescents, and adults over 6 months of age to provide immunity against the influenza virus. The influenza vaccine continues to be the most effective intervention to prevent infection from the virus. Influenza vaccination rates continue to be under the Healthy People 2020 goal of 70%. The purpose of this project proposal was to present an evidence-based program to improve influenza vaccine uptake using phone call reminders in parents of children ages 18 months to 7 years. This project was a single cohort, post-only intervention study. The sample included the parent or guardian of 25 children in a pediatric clinic. Inclusion criteria specific to this project population consisted of age, no vaccination during the prior influenza season, and enrollment in a phone call system. The intervention was the use of bi-weekly phone call reminders to increase influenza vaccine uptake between the months of November 2018 through January 2019. The outcome of increased influenza vaccine uptake at 24%, from a baseline of no vaccination, indicated vaccination improvement with the intervention, but the results were lower than the influenza vaccination benchmark from Healthy People 2020 of 70%. With an increase in influenza vaccine uptake, reduction of hospitalizations and deaths related to complications from the influenza virus can be anticipated.