Aurora Health Care received nearly $230,000 in funding for the first year of a five-year project that aims to improve overall immunization practices for older patients.
Aurora Health Care is one of seven health systems partnering with the American Geriatrics Society to test and report strategies for improving vaccination rates for COVID-19, influenza, pneumonia and shingles.
“As people age, their immune systems gradually weaken, making them more susceptible to illinesses that they may not have given much thought to when they were younger,” said geriatric medicine specialist Ariba Khan, MD, Aurora UW Medical Group principal investigator for the project. “These four vaccines have been identified by the American Geriatrics Society’s Older Adults Vaccine Initiative as particularly important to the health of people ages 65 and older.
Aurora’s team will focus their efforts on the Center for Senior Health and Longevity at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, where they have already begun assessing current immunization practices and gathering baseline vaccination rates. Geriatricians at the center see more than 1,500 people annually.
About two-thirds of adults ages 65 and older have not received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, and more than one-third of older adults have not received this year’s flu vaccine, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Addressing vaccine hesitancy and vaccine fatigue is a major hurdle for the health of our communities, but it is particularly important for older adults, who are one of the most vulnerable populations,” said Michelle Simpson, PhD, RN, co-investigator for the project and Research Scientist with Advocate Aurora Research Institute.
Once the interprofessional team has identified a baseline understanding of the clinic’s immunization practices, they will begin formulating strategies for improving vaccination rates and collaborating with the other participating health systems. The team will also identify changes needed in the electronic health record, such as enabling recording of vaccination data and pulling of data from state immunization registries.
“The hope is that we can eventually take what we’ve learned from this project, including what strategies worked for other sites, and implement it within our health system to enhance both our internal practices and our patient education in order to improve the health of older adults in our care,” Dr. Khan said.
Aurora Health Care’s participation in the American Geriatrics Society (AGS)’s Older Adults Vaccine Initiative is supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award to the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor endorsement, by the CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.
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