How to increase the number of patients aged 65 or older immunised with a current flu vaccine in your practice
Cubiko's Quality Improvement cabinet provides a tool for your practice team to use to participate in and complete Quality Improvement activities that are specific to your practice. Our Quality Improvement metrics will allow you to review areas in your practice that may need improvement.
The Quality Improvement: 65+ influenza vaccine cabinet, provides you with specifically designed Cubiko metrics to help identify any issue with immunising your patients who are 65 years or older with a current influenza vaccine, highlight potential improvements, and track progress through PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle.
To navigate to this metric, go to Clinic Optimisation > Quality Improvement > 65+ influenza vaccine
TOP TIP! Quality Improvement activities assist practices with their Accreditation and PIP QI requirements. You can access Cubiko's PDSA cycle template here.
The sections included in this article relating to the Quality Improvement: 65+ influenza vaccine metric are:
- What is the problem we want to solve?
- How Cubiko can help
- How to use our QI 65+ influenza page
- Other ideas to help increase immunisation of patients
What is the problem we want to solve?
Immunising patients aged 65 and older with a current flu vaccine
The QI activities undertaken by your practice can help optimise the care you provide to your patients and minimise harm. This is because it embraces a culture of safety, quality, and transparency. This reinforces the trust that your patients have in your practice.
Ensuring your most vulnerable patients are vaccinated each year against influenza is a safe and effective way to protect them from serious diseases caused by influenza. Influenza vaccines are given each year to protect against the most common strains of the virus.
The annual influenza vaccine is free through the National Immunisation Program for
adults aged 65 years and over.
This metric shows key measures relating to the immunisation of patients 65 years and older in your practice over an extended historical period. This can be used to determine whether this QI activity would suit your practice and to track progress through a PDSA cycle.
In this metric you can view the trend of your practice's current immunisation percentage of patients aged 65+, over the time period selected. It also shows your total number of active patients and RACGP active patients who are currently vaccinated and what percentage of your active and RACGP active patients have a current influenza vaccination (within the last 15 months).
This metric aligns with the 10 Quality Improvement Measures identified by The Australian Government’s Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement Incentive (PIP QI) to support general practice to qualify for a PIP QI incentive payment.
NOTE: Cubiko records the proportion of your patients who are 65 years and over with a current influenza vaccination daily (within the past 15 months). Data will only be available from September 2022 or, for customers who started using Cubiko after this date, from the date when you started with Cubiko.
The ability to view your practice's trend of vaccination recording over time will assist in showing evidence in your PDSA cycle on how you have improved in this area. You can filter the trend graph to show either your active patients with their current influenza vaccine status recorded or the percentage of RACGP active patients with their current influenza vaccine status recorded.
TOP TIP! You can view your data in the graph by day, week or month by using the Group by drop-down filter on the top right-hand side of the metric.
How Cubiko can help
This section will show you the Cubiko metrics you can use to help increase the percentage of patients aged 65 and over with a current influenza vaccine. They include:
- Patients to vaccinate
- List of patients to vaccinate
Patients to vaccinate
The top number in this metric reflects the total number on this list, with the bottom number being how many patients do not have a current flu vaccine recorded who are due into your practice on the current day.
This metric aligns with the 10 Quality Improvement Measures identified by The Australian Government’s Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement Incentive (PIP QI) to support general practice to qualify for a PIP QI incentive payment.
This table lists the details of all active patients aged 65 and over, who do not currently have a current flu vaccine recorded on their immunisation history in their patient file.
You can filter to view the list of patients in the table who are attending your practice for the current day or next five days to be proactive in organising a flu vaccination for these patients while they are already in your practice.
You can also download and print these lists for each Practitioner. Use the Next appt with filter in the sidebar, to filter by Practitioner for their upcoming appointments.
Using the drop-down filter on the top right-hand side of the metric you can change what patients are showing in the table. You can choose from All patients, No appointment booked, Appointment booked, Appointment today, Appointment next 5 days, using the option that suits your practice needs the best.
TOP TIP! Print this list at the beginning of the day for your team, so that they can assist in this task when patients arrive for their appointment. Alternatively, you can provide access to this cabinet in Viewer Settings to your team members who will be actioning this list.
How to use our Quality Improvement: 65+ influenza page
Follow the steps below to get started with your Quality Improvement activity to increase the number of patients aged 65 or older immunised with a current flu vaccine in your practice:
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Review your current proportion of patients aged 65 and over who are immunised against influenza.
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Choose a target percentage rate increase you want to achieve in a certain time period (e.g. 10% increase over 3 months).
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Use the list of patients to vaccinate metric to flag which patients need their influenza vaccine.
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Print this list for your team to action each day. You can filter and provide this list to each Practitioner as well.
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Review your percentage rate periodically to assess if the steps you have taken have been effective in increasing your overall patient influenza vaccination rate for patients 65 years and over
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Record in your PDSA cycle template the steps you have taken, what you have achieved, and what you will change for the next cycle.
TOP TIP! Remember to review your PDSA cycle results with your team, so they can provide feedback and input for the next cycle.
Other ideas to help improve immunisation of patients
Below is a list of other ideas to assist in your Quality Improvement activities to increase the number of patients aged 65 or older immunised with a current flu vaccine in your practice:
- Ensure you have a practice meeting so your whole team is aware of what you are trying to achieve and so you are all working together to reach your goal.
- Use the patient lists to send bulk SMS to patients to invite them to book for a flu vaccination.
- Implement a reminder system to recall patients each year for their flu vaccine.
TOP TIP! You can read more about why you should complete Quality Improvement activities in our Blog post: 4 Reasons to complete Quality Improvement Activities.