Marina Martinez
WCAAP Program Manager
Our fifth cohort of the WA-CHIP Immunization Learning Collaborative kicked off last week including 12 clinics. Cohort 5 is unique because over half of the clinics enrolled have 50% or more patients on Medicaid and/or are in a high social vulnerability area. We have the opportunity to increase childhood and adolescent immunization rates after rates have fallen due to Covid-19 and look forward to reaching a large number of underserved patients.
| DOH Clinic Name | Location |
| EvergreenHealth Primary Clinics Totem Lake | Kirkland, WA |
| Kadlec Regional Medical Center | Richland, WA |
| Olympia Pediatrics | Olympia, WA |
| Valley View Health Center Chehalis | Chehalis, WA |
| Valley View Health Center Raymond | Raymond, WA |
| King County Clinic Name | Location |
| Sea Hurst Pediatrics | Burien, WA |
| Seattle Indian Health Board | Seattle, WA |
| ICHS Bellevue clinic | Bellevue, WA |
| Swedish Renton Primary Care Clinic | Renton, WA |
| The Polyclinic Pediatrics | Seattle, WA |
| Franciscan Federal Way | Federal Way, WA |
| Neighborcare Columbia City | Seattle, WA |
At our Kick-off, clinics learned their baseline rates of missed opportunities to vaccinate and received education in quality improvement fundamentals and leading change in their practices. Each clinic received coaching in breakout sessions to identify their unique interventions to reduce missed opportunities to vaccinate. Clinics will all also implement reminder-recall / outreach to patients due or overdue for childhood (4–6-year-old) or adolescent vaccines. We have received feedback that the virtual Kick-off was “impressively engaging.”
This learning collaborative is co-led by WCAAP and Seattle Children’s and funded by generous support from the Washington State Department of Health and Public Health Seattle King County’s Best Starts for Kids.
We asked clinic leaders what excites them most about this project, here is what they had to say:
“Learning best practices to help our patients and families.”
“Learning more about our clinic data”
“Getting to know clinics across the state.”
“Looking forward to increasing out numbers after the pandemic lead to some patients having delayed schedules.”
“Collaborating with partners to boost vaccine rates.”
“Working on workflows” This month, clinic leaders will finalize their interventions with their clinic and our QI coaches will be there to support these change makers. We are thrilled with cohort 5, despite staff shortages, these leaders have joined us to collaborate, create efficient workflows, and establish best practices to raise vaccination rates for children and adolescents in WA state. Stay tuned for more information on what impact the selected intervention