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Denice Abbot, RN, a public health nurse at Columbus Public Health in Ohio, has earned the American Nurses Association (ANA) Immunity Award for July 2011, "for her perseverance in ensuring that high-risk clients, including the homeless and drug addicts, receive the vaccination as part of the Ohio state initiative.
Within the course of 7 months at CPH, Abbot nearly doubled the number of clients who are immunized at established venues, achieving the increase through education.
At the immunization sites, according to ANA, she displays a model illustrating a liver's appearance when it is healthy, fibrotic, cirrhotic, and cancerous, and explains the health impacts at each stage. She also has added new immunization sites through partnerships with homeless shelters and drug treatment centers.
While promoting the adult hepatitis vaccination, ANA says Abbot also performs reviews at each site to make sure clients are current on other immunizations, including seasonal influenza and pertussis.
In one recent situation, the Ohio Department of Health provided Columbus Public Health with a surplus of short-dated vaccines to use in less than 10 days. Abbot reportedly partnered with drug treatment centers, homeless shelters, domestic violence agencies, and a jail to administer hundreds of vaccines, saving "thousands of taxpayer dollars," said CPH Program Director Sean Hubert.
"Denice made it her personal mission to assure that the vaccine did not expire, but rather got to the high-risk clients for whom it was intended," Hubert said. "No short-dated vaccine that has come to CPH from other locations has ever expired since Denice came on board."
Though her main mission has been vaccinating high-risk adults against viral hepatitis, according to ANA, Abbot also has found opportunities to increase immunizations among children who are at the sites while their parents receive services. She also conducts outreach clinics for childhood immunizations for high-risk families in lower-income Columbus communities where immunization rates are below average.
ANA grants the national Immunity Award monthly as part of its Bringing Immunity to Every Community project. ANA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are collaborating on the project, which focuses on maximizing nurses' role in increasing vaccination rates and reducing incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases.
The project seeks to increase nurses' knowledge and competency in immunization, encourage nurses to be vaccinated, and position nurses as leading advocates for immunization among peers, patients and the public.
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