Vaccines: Education, Communication, and ‘Secret Weapons’ Keep Communities Healthy

Vaccines: Education, Communication, and 'Secret Weapons' Keep Communities Healthy

Home» Vaccines: Education, Communication, and 'Secret Weapons' Keep Communities Healthy

Heading into end-of-year holiday gatherings and mid-winter respiratory virus season, vaccines that keep older adults and the people who care for them healthy are top of mind. Residents and staff at our member communities nationwide are heeding calls to action from LeadingAge and other partners in the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Risk Less. Do More. campaign by educating and communicating to help get shots in arms.

Education and Communication

Proactive is the preferred approach to health safety and education at Villa Gardens, a Front Porch community in Pasadena, CA. The continuing care retirement community (CCRC) is "very resident-driven, and collaborative between residents and staff," says Executive Director Shaun Rushforth.

Throughout the virus season, details on local pharmacies and other sites providing vaccine access are always available. The CCRC in September offered two vaccine clinics held a week apart, following physicians' advice to space out the timing of COVID and flu vaccinations. And for residents unable to participate, such as those in a Kaiser HMO who needed to receive their shots at a designated site, Villa Gardens offered transportation.

Information sharing is critical, but Rushforth believes what helps most in Villa Gardens' public health efforts is the work done by resident Ann Grant, who he calls the community's "secret weapon." Now semi-retired after a distinguished career in nursing and nursing education, Grant teaches part-time in the nursing program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. At Villa Gardens, she chairs the resident safety committee and edits the monthly newsletter on health topics, offering facts about vaccines, side effects (and how to mitigate them), and even information from Los Angeles County about its wastewater sampling, which Grant says is "a good indicator of whether we're going to see a viral spike."

To encourage vaccine uptake, Grant says, "it's crucially important to provide the information, the research, and then recognize that residents make their own decisions." Resident-to-resident conversation is "an advantage" in that process, Grant explains: "Sometimes they feel more comfortable coming to another resident to say, 'I don't know about this COVID vaccine this time. Is it really necessary? Is it important? What are the side effects?' We share a belief that residents make the best decisions when they have good, accurate information."

Good data is critical to her efforts. "The data we use is either from the CDC or public health [agencies] or the National Institutes of Health," she says. "It's important to provide the citations, so our residents can go and read the material for themselves. It's not just me saying, get your flu shot. It's the CDC saying that this is really important." She adds, "Information is the best impetus for making good decisions."

Serving Home and Community-Based Older Adults

Spreading the word about vaccine availability and opportunities to get shots requires flexibility for staff at Greensboro, NC-based PACE of the Triad, given the wide geographic distribution of its 240-plus participants. But staff is prepared with a plan, says Director of Clinical Services Tina Williams. About 100 of the clients come to the PACE center, and are offered vaccines on the day they come into the center. Home care nurses make appointments and provide the flu vaccine to those who don't get to the center, she explains. Their approach with COVID, Williams says, is to "call the participants and offer it to them if they would like to have it."

"PACE participants are great candidates to get these immunizations, to keep them out of the hospital, decrease their risk of developing pneumonia, or winding up on a ventilator," says Dr. Tiffany Reed, PACE of the Triad's medical director. "These folks include some very sick patients."

The key to getting jabs in arms-no matter the vaccine type-is communication. The PACE shares information with participants in person at the center, via newsletter, and its Facebook page. "We put together an article for the participants and their families, primarily about the influenza and COVID vaccines," Reed says.

Messaging is designed to meet participants where they are. "I feel like our population is a little bit more resistant to taking vaccines," says Reed. "They primarily are concerned about side effects, and we educate them about them and what to do about [them]." The PACE is required to see home-based participants at least once every six months, so home care coordinators and social workers visit and provide vaccine education in person.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, PACE of the Triad partnered with The Well-Spring Group (now known as Kintura and a majority partner in the PACE), CVS pharmacy, and with the local health department to procure and distribute COVID vaccines, but now that supplies are not restricted, participants can receive shots from PACE staff in the center or at home.

Collaboration Delivers

For pharmacies, which played an important role in vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic, the systems put in place then are now well-established and systematic. Saliba's Extended Care Pharmacy, based in Phoenix and Tucson, AZ, now handles flu vaccine clinics for at least 20 aging services provider communities in the state, giving out more than 3,000 shots each year. Rick England, Saliba's manager of consulting services, explains the process. "Vaccine doses are booked ahead of time and begin to arrive in August," says England, ready for flu clinics which typically are held between September and November, such as the clinic Saliba's recently provided for LeadingAge member Christian Care Cottonwood, in Cottonwood, AZ.

As for COVID and RSV vaccines, England says, "We have pre-filled syringes in the pharmacy, so whenever the facility has orders, we send them." The pharmacists and registered nurses who run the clinics bring vaccine information sheets with them and answer patient questions on site, and offer contact information for Saliba's pharmacists for anyone seeking more information. The vaccines are also available to the community staff, at the providers' expense.

"Every year, through onsite clinics nationwide, our member long-term care pharmacies and consultant pharmacists vaccinate in the more than 15,000 skilled nursing homes and 38,000 assisted living centers during the respiratory virus season," says Chad Worz, chief executive of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP), which, like LeadingAge, is a grantee participant in Risk Less. Do More. "These events are a testament to the relationship between the pharmacies and the nursing settings, requiring collaboration and communication between trusted partners. Whether for flu, RSV or COVID, the shots make a difference in keeping communities healthy. We are happy to be part of a deliberate, coordinated effort to protect older adults and health workers in long-term care."

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