Forum helping babies


Youngstown’s immunization rate was below the national average.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — A program to raise immunization rates among Mahoning Valley’s medically underserved infants has drawn recognition from a national organization for the Family Medicine Residency Program at Forum Health Northside Medical Center.

The Forum Health Western Reserve Care System Family Medicine Residency Program, headed by Dr. Lisa N. Weiss, received the 2009 Academy of Family Physicians Foundation Wyeth Immunization Award for system implementation.

The goal of the new system at Northside is to increase immunization rates in children from birth to age 3. The award is accompanied by a $13,000 grant, $3,000 of which will be used toward sending residents to educational conferences and $10,000 to develop the system and for a nurse educator’s salary, Dr. Weiss said.

Typically, Dr. Weiss said, inner-city immunizations rates are lower than the average, and that is true in Youngstown.

“For that reason, the Family Medicine Residency Program applied for the immunization award detailing how it planned to make changes in the residency program functions to help get the rate up,” she said.

The national average in 2004 was 76 percent. The rate in Youngstown for the same period was 53 percent, Dr. Weiss said. That was the most recent year for statistics available for vaccinations recommended by the American Academy of Family Practice and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Western Reserve Care System’s award was among 10 monetary grants and scholarships for “best practices” presented at AAFP’s conference.

Other categories included best practices, which rated systems in place that are achieving high immunization rates within a specified 12-month period, and most improved, which judged how the institution’s system overcame barriers to improve immunization rates within a specified 12-month period.

Dr. Weiss described how the implementation system here was and is being improved.

“We use not only well-child visits, where mom and the kid come in and get shots, but we expanded it to include when a child comes in for any reason, such as a cold. Every time they walk through the door, if they are healthy enough, we give them shots to catch them up,” she said.

“We’ve hired, through the generosity of the Forum Women’s Board, which provided the funds, a nurse educator who talks to prenatal patients and parents or guardians of all kids under the age of 3 about the importance of immunizations,” Dr. Weiss added.

She also said the improved system plans to use Ohio’s statewide immunization registry — Impact SIIS (Impact Statewide Immunization Information System) — to track pediatric patients to ensure they are up to date with their immunizations.

“We have electronic medical records, but in the past, we have just kept them internally. However, we have found our kids are transient, and the state has this wonderful system that any practitioner can hook into and see where the kids are and what they need, relative to their immunizations,” she added.

“It’s very helpful to know where they are at. It also tells you if a child needs a shot. Shot requirements change often, and the state system updates the requirements,” said Dr. Weiss, who also is a member of the Mahoning County District Board of Health.

Immunizations are important, she said, because they help prevent children from getting diseases that can cause permanent damage and to prevent outbreaks of diseases in the general population.

alcorn@vindy.com

CHILDHOOD SHOTS

Raising the rate

The Northside Medical Center’s residency program has won a grant for implementing a program to raise the rate of immunizations for children from birth to age 3, which is typically lower in inner-city areas such as Youngstown.

The national immunization rate in 2004, the most recent statistics available, was 76 percent, compared with 53 percent in Youngstown for the same period.

The shots and the number of each recommended by the American Academy of Family practice and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by age 3 are:

DOTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis): 4.

Polio: 3.

Measles/mumps/rubella: 1.

Haemophilus influenzae, to prevent a type of meningitis: 4.

Hepatitis B: 3.

Prevnar, to protect against pneumococcal bacteria that can cause serious diseases such as meningitis: 3.

Varicella, for chickenpox: 1.

Source: Dr. Lisa N. Weiss