How Cubiko helps you deliver the flu vaccine
- Cubiko, Data, Vaccinations
- Chris Smeed
- May 6, 2021
Flu season is well underway. Practices all around Australia have the dual concern of vaccinating patients for COVID-19 and influenza. It’s a busy time to manage patient expectations and stock for two vaccines.
It is challenging to ensure patients are vaccinated with adequate time between vaccines. Our Flu Vaccination Support cabinet helps you deliver the suitable vaccine to the right patient at the right time.
Cubiko helps practices with finding the right patients to vaccinate for the COVID-19 vaccine.
How many patients at your clinic are eligible to receive government-funded flu vaccine?
Is this a question you can answer in your practice? Knowing how many patients are eligible to receive the government-funded flu vaccine is crucial to a well-managed flu season. It dictates how many vaccines you will need to order to the amount of nursing and clinic hours you will need to dedicate to deliver the vaccine.
Cubiko provides a list of patients that are eligible to receive the government-funded flu vaccine, as per the National Immunisation Program Guideline.
With Cubiko, government-funded patients included are:
- all children from 6 months to less than 5 years of age
- all adults aged 65 years and older
- pregnant women
- all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 6 months and over
- individuals aged 6 months and older with medical conditions which increase the risk of influenza disease complications (for a full list, go to NCIRS Influenza Vaccines Fact Sheet)
Expected demand for private flu vaccines at your practice
To prepare for flu vaccines in your practice, you need to estimate how many patients want to be immunised, but do not qualify for a government funded vaccine. This can be challenging to gauge without the proper reporting.
Cubiko’s Flu Vaccination Support cabinet provides practices with a list of patients who may want the private flu vaccine. We include details of any upcoming appointments for those patients and the date they received their last vaccine.
Our metrics find patients who may want the private flu vaccine by first checking if they are not eligible for a government-funded vaccine. Next, Cubiko looks if they’ve received a flu vaccine at your practice in the previous 15 months.
Do you use Cubiko in your practice?
Practices that use Cubiko can look back historically with our Past Clinic Metrics cabinet. Use this report to:
- Provide detailed analysis of your past appointments.
- Filter to specific appointment types that you have used for flu vaccines.
- Compare your DNA rate between flu vaccine appointments and regular appointments.
- Appointment count by practitioner. Who provides the most flu vaccines?
Don't yet use Cubiko?
Understanding how many vaccines you need to order
To understand how many vaccines you may need to order, use our new metrics in our Flu Vaccination Support cabinet. The list of patients eligible for the government-funded vaccine will provide the bulk of vaccines that need to be ordered. The list of patients who may want a private vaccine is the additional vaccines you may want to order.
For future flu vaccine seasons, analyse your patient numbers early in the year. Once you have understood how many flu vaccines you will need to order, look at your staffing and logistics.
Logistics will include whether you can store the number of vaccines you require. Use the number of vaccines you need to order your consumables to deliver the vaccine in your community.
For staffing, you can look historically with Cubiko at who delivered the most vaccines last season. Not just individual practitioner but also the role of those practitioners. Whether that be nurses or doctors in your practice, you can estimate who in your practice should be providing the flu vaccines by looking back.
With your process in mind, ensure you have the right amount of staff to deliver the vaccine to your practice. Is your practice also delivering the COVID-19 vaccine? We’ve written our top tips for the logistical challenges of delivering the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ensuring adequate time between the flu and COVID-19 vaccine
Government advice recommending that patients wait at least 14 days between a dose of seasonal flu vaccine and a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The 14-day time frame is a precautionary measure to manage the common side effects of many vaccinations.
Cubiko gives practices the ability to exclude all patients who have an upcoming immunisation appointment to help manage this requirement, and that the two immunisations are given 14 days apart.
Delivering the COVID-19 vaccine in your practice? Our Vaccination Support cabinet details which patients may be eligible.
Ensuring you vaccinate the most vulnerable patients
It is challenging to ensure the most vulnerable in the community receive the right care at the right time. Cubiko helps practices deliver outstanding patient care to their local community.
The Flu VaccinationSupport cabinet allows practices to sort by eligibility for the government-funded flu vaccine. This could be used for focusing your clinics resources to managing their clinics in way that is more efficient for you. This list of patients includes a de-identified Best Practice ID, which can be used with your chosen online appointment vendor. Practices then send this as an SMS broadcast.
Cubiko provides practices with insights so they can vaccinate the right patient at the right time.