The impact of a quality improvement continuing medical education intervention on physicians’ vaccination practice: a controlled study

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of a longitudinal quality improvement continuing medical education (CME) intervention on influenza and pneumococcal vaccination rates for patient populations at high-risk or aged ≥ 65. An observational cohort design with a propensity score to adjust for vaccine eligibility between the intervention and control cohorts was utilized to assess the impact of the intervention among primary care physicians. The intervention was a three-stage quality improvement initiative with CME learning activities. Stage A was an assessment of practice to establish baseline performance. Stage B was participation in learning interventions and individualized action planning for practice change, and Stage C was practice reassessment. Data were also collected for a control group of clinicians who did not participate during the same period. One hundred primary care physicians completed all 3 intervention stages10/14-7/15. Altogether, 361,528 patient records of vaccine receipt were compared for those physicians who completed the educational intervention and those who did not. The percentage of physicians' adult patients receiving influenza or pneumococcal vaccination increased on all measures. The difference between intervention versus control groups was 3.4% higher for influenza ≥ 65 years, 2.1% for influenza high-risk, 0.6% for pneumococcal ≥ 65 years, and 1.4% for pneumococcal high-risk. These results show that physician participation in a quality improvement CME initiative can be an effective strategy to improve vaccination administration. The findings strengthen the evidence that CME learning interventions can advance quality improvement goals and more favorably affect physicians' practice when educational strategies are utilized.

Health Care Providers’ Knowledge, Practices, and Barriers to Hepatitis Vaccination Guidelines

“…We administered an online survey to 400 United States HCPs to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding adult HepA/ 81.0% 11 and receiving training to stay updated on guidelines was a significant predictor of familiarity with the ACIP in the current study. HCPs who reported that it was important to vaccinate at-risk patient populations according to the guidelines or that they were very likely to recommend vaccines to at-risk patients were more likely to self-report adherence to the guidelines than other HCPs.…”

Reducing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy by Implementing Organizational Intervention in a Primary Care Setting in Bahrain

“…Conjointly, the literature provided evidence for effectiveness of prompt point of care in improving the vaccine counseling rate by physicians [ 20 ]. Moreover, the available evidence proves the positive impact of physicians’ knowledge [ 21 ] and performance feedback on the compliance of physicians with guidelines [ 22 ]. The current study found that several changes in process changes and continuous learning improve the compliance rate.…”

Leveraging Interdisciplinary Teams for Pre-Visit Planning to Improve Pneumococcal Immunization Rates Among Internal Medicine Subspecialty Practices

“…The initiative incorporated 3 major components: (1) clinician and team education, (2) pre-visit counseling by registered nurses, and (3) interdisciplinary pre-visit huddles. Although quality improvement efforts have utilized elements of pre-visit planning, point-of-care reminders, and educational training, 7 - 9 none have applied a combined effort like the one implemented in this initiative.…”

“…There have been multiple quality improvement studies that have assessed innovative strategies to improve pneumococcal vaccine rates. 7 - 9 Desai et al 7 implemented point-of-care reminders, Sivaraman et al 8 initiated pre-visit planning, and a study completed by Kawczak et al 9 showed that having physician involvement and continued medical education training were beneficial to improving pneumococcal vaccination rates. None of these studies though utilized all the elements implemented in our novel approach.…”