Improving Vaccination Rates in Pediatric Primary Care

Objectives: In a small, rural pediatric primary care clinic, the effectiveness of electronic patient portal reminders were evaluated at improving vaccination rates for school required immunizations. Methods: A quality improvement project was initiated utilizing The Social Ecological Model. All pediatric patients were sent reminders who were under-immunized. This QI project evaluated the effectiveness of vaccine reminders on the improvement of immunization rates in the clinic Results: Total number of fully-vaccinated patients within the practice improved (2%) and patients under-immunized decreased by 1%. 87 immunizations were given to patients were given to patients who were under-immunized and an average of 10% of recorded un-vaccinated patient prior to intervention received at least one immunization. Conclusions: Implementation of vaccine reminders into a rural primary care pediatric practice improved patient compliance with school-required vaccines. Although immunization rates improved, the practice continues to see higher rates of under-immunized patients compared to state reporting data. Key Words: Vaccines, improvement, pediatric, primary care, portal reminder, vaccination rate