Webcast Series:
The 2010 Council on Adult Immunization –
Expert Driven Education to Improve
Immunization Success in Adult Populations

Vaccination is recognized as one of the most successful public health strategies of the twentieth century and today only 300 children die each year from vaccine preventable diseases (VPD). This represents a 99% reduction in mortality compared with the pre-vaccine era. However, in sharp contrast with this success, approximately 50,000 to 70,000 adults die each year from VPDs. This is a 300% greater rate of death in adults from VPDs compared with children. Further, morbidity and mortality associated with adult VPDs cost almost $10 billion per year, placing a significant burden on the health care system.

There is a clear need to improve immunization success amongst the adult population. Several potential barriers have in fact been identified to explain the disparate outcomes between childhood and adult vaccination. Notable among them are 1) inadequate delivery system infrastructure 2) financial constraints 3) patient and societal expectations 4) health care provider attitudes 5) lack of federal and local health department support programs 6) challenges in the administration of "series" vaccines such as HPV 7) lack of consistent adult vaccine documentation 8) unavailability of patient centric models for vaccination with decentralization. To address these barriers and improve adult immunization outcomes, the Partnership for Prevention issued the document Strengthening Adult Immunization: A Call to Action, which identified 6 steps, including important educational and quality improvement oriented goals besides addressing coverage and access issues.

To help address these objectives, the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education held an innovative expert-led educational initiative which carefully examined patient-related and provider-related barriers to improve immunization rates in adults and to develop and disseminate practical strategies to address these barriers.

Series Objectives

1. Identify common patient concerns, lack of awareness, and misconceptions about vaccines and define the role of providers in addressing these gaps.
2. Describe tools that can help alleviate patient-related barriers to improving adult immunization rates, such as lack of record keeping and socio-economic-cultural barriers.
3. Discuss the safety and efficacy data related to adult vaccines and summarize ACIP recommendations.
4. Formulate strategies to optimize immunization levels by addressing provider related barriers.
5. Summarize lessons from recent experiences with vaccines that require rapid immunization of large groups and those that require series administration.
6. Identify high risk groups indicated for different vaccines.
7. Implement strategies to appropriately evaluate and prioritize candidates, appropriately considering risk classification and possible contraindications.

Target Audience

This activity is intended for family physicians, internists, infectious disease specialists, and other primary care practitioners.

Activity Director

Steven M. Gordon, MD, FIDSA, FACP
Chairman, Department of Infectious Disease
Medicine Institute
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, Ohio

This CME activity was produced by
the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education
and MedCases, LLC.