Your Adolescents & Young Adults May Not Be Protected
Immunization rates for recommended vaccines among adolescents and young adults are not where they need to be. Why?
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Remind parents to schedule appointments for their adolescents. You can identify adolescents who have missed recommended immunizations via your EHR and contact them to schedule appointments. Offer ways to make vaccination scheduling convenient for adolescents and their parents: for example, evening appointments or vaccination clinics during school vacation times.
Check vaccination status of adolescents and young adults before their appointment so you can recommend getting the vaccines they need to stay up to date and protected. During the office visit, ask them and their parents if they have questions about vaccines. Listen to their concerns and make confident, concise vaccine recommendations. Use Unity’s 3Cs course, a free, online course, for help on communicating confident, concise, and consistent (3Cs) vaccination recommendations.
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If a patient doesn’t come in regularly, encourage getting multiple vaccines at the same office visit. It is an opportunity to maximize protection for your patients. Help parents and adolescents understand that co-administering recommended vaccines is safe. Remind them that co-administration means less visits to get needed vaccinations. If co-administration doesn’t happen, schedule the adolescent to come back for other vaccines in a timely manner.
Parents cite their healthcare provider as the most trusted influence on their adolescent vaccination decisions. They want your advice about their situation. They appreciate your listening, acknowledging and answering their questions, recommending needed vaccines, and helping to keep their adolescents healthy.
You can hold effective conversations with parents and teens where you listen to their concerns and make confident, presumptive vaccine recommendations. Take Unity’s 3Cs course, a free, online course for help on communicating confident, concise, and consistent (3Cs) vaccination recommendations.
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Parents and their teens often do not know what vaccines they need, and they look to their HCP for guidance. Parents cite their HCP as the most trusted influence on their adolescent vaccination decisions. They want your advice about their situation and information about what they need.
Recommend to parents and adolescents and young adults that adolescents and young adults get all nationally recommend vaccines (unless contraindicated): the vaccines that protect against meningitis (all 5 types/groups - ABCWY), tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, HPV-related cancers, COVID-19, and flu. Refer them to good sources of information, such as this easy-to-use reference guide.
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Sometimes healthcare priorities challenge focus on vaccinations. However, you can communicate the importance of staying protected against vaccine-preventable illnesses and recommend needed vaccinations so as not to miss opportunities while adolescents and young adults are visiting your office. If vaccination doesn’t happen, schedule the adolescent to come back for vaccines in a timely manner.
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Missed opportunities include visits for reasons other than vaccination (e.g., sports physicals, sick visits). These are opportunities to review vaccination status and recommend getting needed vaccines.
Another opportunity for getting teens up to date is to encourage getting multiple vaccines at the same office visit. Help parents and adolescents understand that co-administering recommended vaccines is safe. Remind them that co-administration means less visits to get needed vaccinations. If co-administration doesn’t happen, schedule the adolescent to come back for other vaccines in a timely manner.
UNITY Resources
Parents cite their healthcare provider as the most trusted influence on their adolescent vaccination decisions. They want your advice about their situation. They appreciate your acknowledging and answering their questions, recommending needed vaccines, and helping to keep their adolescents healthy. Use Unity’s 3Cs course, a free, online course to help you provide having confident, concise, and consistent (3Cs) vaccination recommendations. The 3Cs approach will help you to listen, address their questions, and make confident, presumptive vaccine recommendations.
For parents and teens with extensive questions, discussions may need to happen across multiple visits. Refer parents and adolescents to good sources of information such as this easy-to-use reference guide, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Immunize.org, and the sites of leading research hospitals, such as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center and the Cleveland Clinic.
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