Researchers

Immunizations and Long-Term Care

Influenza and pneumonia are among the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in nursing home residents. Effective immunizations are available, but are underutilized. The Institute on Aging has developed a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of its influenza and pneumococcal disease immunization strategies for staff and residents in nursing home facilities.

The goal of this quality improvement pilot project, titled Increasing Vaccination Rates in Long-Term Care, is to deploy successful immunization programs to nursing facility sites. Two strategies will be compared, leading to evidence on how to best implement an immunization program. Six facilities associated with the University of Pittsburgh’s Division of Geriatric Medicine have agreed to participate:

• three have been given written educational materials (the AMDA Immunization Toolkit) with instructions to update their current vaccination programs
• three have participated in a collaborative small group session in which they identified barriers to improvement, and adapted quality improvement techniques to address these issues

Staff and resident vaccination rates will be compared using data collected.

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