Every August, National Immunization Awareness Month brings the usual reminders from physicians and pharmacists: schedule a flu shot, check vaccine records, and catch up on boosters. Those reminders matter. But they also point to a broader opportunity for pharmaceutical teams’ patient engagement strategies.
A physician may have already raised the topic, but when patients are managing a new diagnosis or chronic conditions that have them juggling several care priorities at once, vaccination often ends up on the back burner. Some may not fully understand why it matters to them. Others may postpone due to work, family responsibilities, or other priorities that feel more immediate. And of course, some may simply forget as they forge ahead with their daily to-do lists.
Health awareness messages can help bring the physician’s recommendation back into focus when the patient is more prepared to act.
3 Catalysts Driving Demand for Health Awareness Messaging
Patient age informs vaccine recommendations
Age-based eligibility is the most established trigger and the easiest to act on, which makes the coverage numbers harder to explain. Herpes zoster vaccination is over 90% effective at preventing shingles and postherpetic neuralgia in adults 50 years and older with healthy immune systems, based on analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But while vaccination rates among that cohort rose from 1.1% in 2018 to 28.7% in 2024, nearly three-quarters of the eligible population remains unprotected against shingles. These numbers point to communication that doesn’t happen when it could make a difference.
Prescribed therapies that increase a patient’s vulnerability
Age isn’t the only threshold. Certain prescribed therapies can put a much younger patient into the same risk bracket as someone decades older. Take a patient in their 30s starting an immunosuppressive therapy for an autoimmune condition. If they’ve had chickenpox, which is likely among most adults their age, these patients face a higher chance of the latent varicella-zoster virus reactivating as shingles before the age-based vaccine recommendation.
Prescribed therapies that signal potential vaccine need
The drug being prescribed can be an indicator for adjunctive therapy, too. A patient starting or refilling a birth control prescription is, among other things, a patient for whom human papillomavirus vaccination (HPV) is worth revisiting. Catch-up vaccination has been a stable, well-established recommendation through age 26 for over a decade.
New Ways to Engage Patients Without Adding New Infrastructure
What’s notable about all three signals is that they already exist. The necessary clinical context is sitting right inside routine prescribing and patients’ health record data. But awareness needs to be activated at the right moment.
National Immunization Awareness Month is the perfect time to explore new ways to make sure patients know about vaccines that could help prevent serious health problems down the line. Connecting with patients right when these clinical triggers occur helps keep a physician’s advice top-of-mind and bridges the gap between an initial care discussion and actual follow-through.
That’s where TimelySM by DrFirst® fits into an effective engagement strategy. Provider-to-patient messages, delivered via secure, mobile-friendly digital touchpoints, connects patients to personalized educational resources and vaccine awareness without burdening clinicians or requiring complex new infrastructure.
From One-Size-Fits-All to Just-for-Me: How Patient Engagement Is Getting Personal
Left in the Dark: Specialty Medication Patients Need Real-Time Information to Break Through Prior Authorization Delays
