Leslee Flores
Project Proposal: Conducting Pneumococcal and Shingles Vaccine Status Assessment during Targeted Medication Reviews
“The motivation behind my project proposal is the love I have for my senior community.”
Dr. Flores is a PGY1 community pharmacy resident at Walgreens Pharmacy in Chapel Hill, NC. She shares that in comparison to other populations, the senior community seeks more information about preventing illness and staying out of the hospital because they understand the cost burden of hospitalizations. She also notes that many seniors have had pneumonia or shingles and thus understand the toll it would take on their bodies.
Leslee Flores highlights the importance of immunizations and how beneficial pharmacists can be in improving public health: “The goal of increasing immunization rates benefits my seniors’ immediate health, saves costs to them, as well as reduces costs to the healthcare system through primary prevention of disease.”
It only took one patient and a mention about an interaction they had with their butcher that motivated Dr. Flores: "This project was inspired by an older gentleman to whom I administered a shingles vaccine. He mentioned that his butcher had recommended that he receive the shingles vaccine in order to prevent getting the shingles, which can be very painful. This really made me think about our role as the pharmacist. If a butcher could fit a conversation about overall preventative health into a conversation about meat, how could it be that we, as pharmacists, could not do the same in the conversations we have about each patient’s medication-related health concerns every day?"
Great point Dr. Flores! If anyone in the community can recommend a vaccination, a pharmacist certainly makes sense to be the person to do so!