Renewing Efforts to Prevent Influenza During COVID-19: Limiting Missed Opportunities

Faculty

Needs Statement

Seasonal influenza remains a serious and life-threatening disease that can cause serious complications in patients with various chronic health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and immunosuppression. The most effective approach to reduce the burden of seasonal influenza is through vaccination. Yet, barriers to immunization have played a significant factor in limiting vaccine use and their effectiveness. PCPs must continue to take a proactive role in preventing influenza, particularly those patients at higher risk of serious complications from infection. Additionally, with the expansion of available influenza vaccines, selecting the most appropriate vaccine can be confusing.

Target Audience

This activity is designed to meet the educational needs of primary care providers in the community to improve vaccination rates among their patients and to promote outreach efforts to address healthcare disparities in underserved and difficult-to-reach populations.

Objectives

At the conclusion of the educational activity, the learner should be able to:
1. Identify patient populations at risk for severe influenza or influenza-related complications
2. Individualize influenza vaccine selection based on current ACIP recommendations and patient factors
3. Evaluate strategies to overcome vaccine hesitancy and disparities to improve immunization rates in the community

Accreditation

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by UK HealthCare CECentral and Vemco MedEd. University of Kentucky HealthCare CECentral is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

CME
This enduring material is designated for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Faculty Disclosure

All planners, faculty, and others in control of educational content are required to disclose all their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is defined as one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.

None of the planners, faculty, and others in control of educational content for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies.

The material presented in this course represents information obtained from the scientific literature as well as the clinical experiences of the speakers. In some cases, the presentations might include discussion of investigational agents and/or off-label indications for various agents used in clinical practice. Speakers will inform the audience when they are discussing investigational and/or off-label uses.

Content review confirmed that the content was developed in a fair, balanced manner free from commercial bias. Disclosure of a relationship is not intended to suggest or condone commercial bias in any presentation, but it is made to provide participants with information that might be of potential importance to their evaluation of a presentation.

Acknowledgement

This activity is jointly provided by the University of Kentucky and Vemco MedEd.

Supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Sanofi Pasteur.