Your influence is key to the development, health, and well-being of children in your care. We encourage you to take advantage of school being out for the summer to get our young members up to date with recommended immunizations.
As you know, for children, preteens, and teens to attend school or daycare, they need to meet age-specific vaccination requirements. Here are a few tips and strategies to engage parents and help improve immunization rates:
- Review their chart prior to appointment for immunization gaps.
- Reach out to parents to schedule their child’s vaccination appointments.
- Educate your Care Teams about scheduling visits within the guideline time frames.
- Continue to ensure at each appointment, even sick visits, that immunization records are reviewed and help your child catch up if they are not up to date.
- Advise parents on the importance of timely vaccines.
- Provide handouts on the diseases/illnesses that vaccines prevent.
Summer is also a good time to remind the whole family to get COVID vaccines and boosters that are now available to everyone 6 months and older.
For more information, see recommendations for ages 7 to 18 and 6 and under. This measure is based on the American Academy of Pediatrics Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents (published by the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health).
Here are our Care/Case Management programs to support child health, other helpful resources, and EmblemHealth’s clinical practice guidelines.
National Immunization Awareness Month
National Breastfeeding Month – Breastfeeding is another way to offer immunity to children.