- Many providers abandoned the guidelines for H1N1 when there was a shortage or absence of vaccine in their practices.
- Dealing with the shortages caused some behaviors that, in retrospect, didn't make great sense, like rationing vaccines by lottery.
- The transparency of the health resource allocation and concern over inappropriate influence, raised in the news over Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, etc. This certainly raised questions about the appearance of an incomplete strategy, perhaps worsened by the defensive-sounding explanations.
- The data collection and surveillance degradation when providers decided that testing, tracking, and classifying patients was non-productive. This happened for many reasons. People who had symptoms for more than two days were told not to come in, since the treatment must be administered in the first two days of symptoms. Others were not tested but treated empirically, since it's know that H1N1 is by far the most prevalent flu strain. Both practices reduced or eliminated the documentation necessary to understand the extent of the epidemic.
- Although we have primarily a fee-for-service care model, where treatment is most often driven by patient's showing up or scheduling appointments, we have a vaccination strategy that target's patients in multiple phases, starting with pregnant women, infant contacts, HCP/EMS, persons 6 months to 24 years old, and high risk adults (those with chronic disease) under 65 years old. We don't have broadly deployed scheduling, out-bound calling, and related systems to execute that strategy. So we broadcast the criteria in the media and other public channels, through employers, etc., and try to hit our target population as efficiently as we can. The planning and execution is best-effort at best.
From what I learned today, the vaccination program is actually going very well. The public health agencies, health providers, employers, and volunteers have been very effective at getting vaccines to most people who want to be vaccinated. At least in many geographies. And production capabilities are improving. Further, we all know from the recent NIAID study that the vaccine is very effective.
The H1N1 vaccination and treatment program is both a source of optimism, as well as sobering, relative to what we can expect to be the impact as we move forward to use EHRs to facilitate programs to improve the public's health. My take-away is that we in HCIT should watch the H1N1 diagnosis and treatment experience closely. It can be our vaccination, protecting us from the hazards such as those outlined in the bullets above, characterized by behavioral, resource and logistical issues.
