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Vaccinations and other preventive medicine issues are commonly felt to be the responsibility of primary care physicians.
After all, we are far too busy at the hospital putting out fires and dealing with acute, life-threatening emergencies to address routine matters, no matter how significant they may be, right? And, of course, our office-based colleagues have a lot of extra time on their hands. They merely have to see an unending stream of sick patients, return phone calls, refill prescriptions, and keep up with government regulations, implement new EHRs, ad nauseam. (Do any of these tasks remind you of why you steered clear of primary care in the first place?)
We all know that primary preventive issues often fall through the cracks for one reason or another. Many physicians have argued that "preventive services are not billable." Fortunately, with new regulations and the push for quality, accountable care, more primary care physicians will be forced to take preventive services more seriously.
But what about us?
In our day-to-day activities on the wards, do we really spend enough time on how we can prevent the potentially easy-to-prevent hospitalizations, or is our focus lost in the demands of meeting core measures and discharging patients as efficiently and safely as possible, pulling out our hair while trying to input orders electronically, or meeting a myriad of other challenges to using the latest EHR we need to learn? Or maybe the task of screening patients for vaccines is simply left up to the nursing staff.
A recent article titled "U.S. Hospitalizations for Pneumonia after a Decade of Pneumococcal Vaccination" gives us strong reason to rethink our sometimes laissez-faire attitude toward immunization (N. Engl. J. Med. 2013;369:155-63).
Specifically, investigators compared the average annual rates of pneumonia-related hospitalizations from 1997 through 1999 (prior to the introduction of the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [PCV7] into the U.S. childhood immunization schedule in 2000) to rates from 2007 through 2009, after its introduction. They calculated that there were 47,000 fewer annual hospitalizations than expected among children younger than 2 years of age and 73,000 fewer hospitalizations annually for adults 85 years of age or older, based on the rates of hospitalization prior to introduction of PCV7. When all age groups were evaluated, investigators reported a total of 168,000 fewer hospitalizations annually.
That is a tremendous disease burden that has been prevented thus far, and it provides undeniable proof that we should all take vaccination very seriously, no matter how busy we may be.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
Vaccinations and other preventive medicine issues are commonly felt to be the responsibility of primary care physicians.
After all, we are far too busy at the hospital putting out fires and dealing with acute, life-threatening emergencies to address routine matters, no matter how significant they may be, right? And, of course, our office-based colleagues have a lot of extra time on their hands. They merely have to see an unending stream of sick patients, return phone calls, refill prescriptions, and keep up with government regulations, implement new EHRs, ad nauseam. (Do any of these tasks remind you of why you steered clear of primary care in the first place?)
We all know that primary preventive issues often fall through the cracks for one reason or another. Many physicians have argued that "preventive services are not billable." Fortunately, with new regulations and the push for quality, accountable care, more primary care physicians will be forced to take preventive services more seriously.
But what about us?
In our day-to-day activities on the wards, do we really spend enough time on how we can prevent the potentially easy-to-prevent hospitalizations, or is our focus lost in the demands of meeting core measures and discharging patients as efficiently and safely as possible, pulling out our hair while trying to input orders electronically, or meeting a myriad of other challenges to using the latest EHR we need to learn? Or maybe the task of screening patients for vaccines is simply left up to the nursing staff.
A recent article titled "U.S. Hospitalizations for Pneumonia after a Decade of Pneumococcal Vaccination" gives us strong reason to rethink our sometimes laissez-faire attitude toward immunization (N. Engl. J. Med. 2013;369:155-63).
Specifically, investigators compared the average annual rates of pneumonia-related hospitalizations from 1997 through 1999 (prior to the introduction of the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [PCV7] into the U.S. childhood immunization schedule in 2000) to rates from 2007 through 2009, after its introduction. They calculated that there were 47,000 fewer annual hospitalizations than expected among children younger than 2 years of age and 73,000 fewer hospitalizations annually for adults 85 years of age or older, based on the rates of hospitalization prior to introduction of PCV7. When all age groups were evaluated, investigators reported a total of 168,000 fewer hospitalizations annually.
That is a tremendous disease burden that has been prevented thus far, and it provides undeniable proof that we should all take vaccination very seriously, no matter how busy we may be.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
Vaccinations and other preventive medicine issues are commonly felt to be the responsibility of primary care physicians.
After all, we are far too busy at the hospital putting out fires and dealing with acute, life-threatening emergencies to address routine matters, no matter how significant they may be, right? And, of course, our office-based colleagues have a lot of extra time on their hands. They merely have to see an unending stream of sick patients, return phone calls, refill prescriptions, and keep up with government regulations, implement new EHRs, ad nauseam. (Do any of these tasks remind you of why you steered clear of primary care in the first place?)
We all know that primary preventive issues often fall through the cracks for one reason or another. Many physicians have argued that "preventive services are not billable." Fortunately, with new regulations and the push for quality, accountable care, more primary care physicians will be forced to take preventive services more seriously.
But what about us?
In our day-to-day activities on the wards, do we really spend enough time on how we can prevent the potentially easy-to-prevent hospitalizations, or is our focus lost in the demands of meeting core measures and discharging patients as efficiently and safely as possible, pulling out our hair while trying to input orders electronically, or meeting a myriad of other challenges to using the latest EHR we need to learn? Or maybe the task of screening patients for vaccines is simply left up to the nursing staff.
A recent article titled "U.S. Hospitalizations for Pneumonia after a Decade of Pneumococcal Vaccination" gives us strong reason to rethink our sometimes laissez-faire attitude toward immunization (N. Engl. J. Med. 2013;369:155-63).
Specifically, investigators compared the average annual rates of pneumonia-related hospitalizations from 1997 through 1999 (prior to the introduction of the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [PCV7] into the U.S. childhood immunization schedule in 2000) to rates from 2007 through 2009, after its introduction. They calculated that there were 47,000 fewer annual hospitalizations than expected among children younger than 2 years of age and 73,000 fewer hospitalizations annually for adults 85 years of age or older, based on the rates of hospitalization prior to introduction of PCV7. When all age groups were evaluated, investigators reported a total of 168,000 fewer hospitalizations annually.
That is a tremendous disease burden that has been prevented thus far, and it provides undeniable proof that we should all take vaccination very seriously, no matter how busy we may be.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
