MOST NOT GETTING NEEDED VACCINATIONS
There is a push this year to vaccinate patients with rheumatic disease for both seasonal and H1N1 flu strains but, if recent history is any indication, a large number of these patients will not get their needed vaccinations.
Dr. Curtis and colleagues looked at national Medicare claims data from 1999 to 2006.3 Over a five-year period, they identified many tests and services recommended as preventive measures for older adults (such as vaccinations and bone mineral density testing, among others) and matched those with the specialty of the providing physician. They included influenza vaccination as one of the services.
“Over the five years we evaluated, only about one in five patients with rheumatic or psoriatic arthritis got their flu vaccines each year,” says Dr. Curtis. “This is clearly a quality-of-care issue when important, nationally recommended preventive services such as vaccinations are not being performed.”
The investigators did find that those who saw both a rheumatologist and a primary care physician were more likely to be properly vaccinated than if they were seeing either physician alone.
“Rheumatologists do a good job of taking care of people’s arthritis,” he says. “But they are not shouldering the burden of all of the important preventive tests and services that need to be done for people with rheumatoid and other inflammatory diseases.”
