New Software Tool Keeps Kids’ Vaccinations on Schedule
Medical guidelines in the United States call for each child to receive about 27 doses of vaccine before turning two. Booster shots are often recommended until the child turns six. These vaccines protect the child against 15 diseases that are preventable with a proper vaccination schedule.
A lot of the time and for many reasons, however, that vaccination schedule isn’t maintained adequately and vaccines get missed or delayed. Until now, a very complicated set of calculations needed to be made before administering any missed or late vaccine doses. Many factors, including the child’s age, time since last vaccine, and which other vaccines, if any, are to be administered at the same time, must all be taken into consideration before continuing the vaccine schedule.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers have developed an online tool that helps parents and pediatricians stay on schedule. After routine data is entered, the tool quickly structures an immunization schedule based on the child’s age, previous vaccination history, and time elapsed since the last vaccine. In the case of missed or late vaccinations, the software program can devise the optimum time to resume the vaccination schedule.
The Georgia research team, led by Pinar Keskinocak, associate professor for the school’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, demonstrated a beta version of the vaccine-scheduling software tool at the October meeting of the AAP National Conference and Exhibition, where it was presented to the Committee on Infectious Diseases. Demonstrations were also presented to various pediatric clinics in the Atlanta area, including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
A recent report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 28% of American toddlers have not been adequately vaccinated. An additional survey identified only 9% of US children do receive the full spectrum of recommended vaccinations in the time frame advocated and only about half of all American children receive the full regimen of vaccinations by age two.
Diseases prevented by proper childhood immunization procedures include Hepatitis A and B, Haemophilus influenzae type B, rotavirus, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella. The software tool contains data for each of these diseases but not for influenza vaccines, although influenza vaccines are recommended for young children.
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
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[...] immunizations of their children by not receiving all of them in one doctor visit. There is now a downloadable vaccination scheduling tool to help parents keep track of when their children should receive their vaccinations. Deciding [...]