By Dave Ranney and Jim McLean
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Jan. 31
Kansas pharmacists want to be able to vaccinate children.
They can”t now. State law lets them vaccinate adults
flu shots, for example
but not kids.
“We need to make immunization easy,” said Gardner pharmacist Sam Boyajian. “The more access (parents) have, the sooner their kids will get their shots.”
But the state”s physicians don”t like the idea. It”s OK, they say, for a pharmacist to vaccinate adults who can answer questions about their medical history. But not children, because
too many things can go wrong.
“We don”t think a retail pharmacy is an acceptable environment (for a medical emergency),” said Chip Wheelan, executive director at the Kansas Association of Osteopathic Medicine.
Wheelmen and Boyajian testified Wednesday before the House Health and Human Services Committee on House bills 2009 and 2097, which would remove the age restrictions.
Wheelen was supported by Dan Morin, director of governmental affairs at the Kansas Medical Society.
“Is there a problem here that needs to be fixed?” Morin asked, noting that Kansas” immunization rate was 12th best in the nation last year.
“There isn”t an access crisis,” he said.
Recent improvements aside, the state”s immunization rate was seen as a problem in 2004. That year, Kansas ranked 43rd among states in administering, on time, a standard series of vaccinations to children, according to the National Immunization Survey.
Dr. Belinda Vail, a family medicine physician at the University of Kansas Medical center, said she also was concerned about allowing parents to have their children vaccinated by pharmacists rather than doctors.
“They”ll do that and their children won”t see a doctor for a long, long time,” Vail said. “That really scares me.”
Several legislators bristled at the notion that pharmacists were less-qualified to give immunizations and less-concerned about children”s health than physicians.
Rep. Don Hill, R-Emporia, also a pharmacist, said several states allow pharmacists to immunize children and have not suffered for it.
“A lot of these states are rural in nature where access is an issue,” Hill said.
Earlier in the day, the Immunize Kansas Kids Steering Committee reviewed a pair of studies done by the Kansas Health Institute.
The Immunize Kansas Kids project was launched last fall to study the underlying reasons that some children in Kansas don”t receive their immunizations on time. The project”s goal is to recommend policies to increase the immunization rate to 90 percent and sustain it at that level.
Though doctor groups oppose pharamacists vaccinating children, a KHI study shows that Kansas doctors don”t provide immunizations at the same level as doctors elsewhere in the country. Instead they tend to refer the patients to the local health departments or other providers for the shots.
“Kansas ranks among the lowest seven states in the country for private share of vaccination activities,” according to the KHI report.
The study
found that while 65 percent of the private clinics surveyed offered immunization services, only half were enrolled in the federal Vaccines for Children program, which funds immunizations for uninsured children. That is much lower than the national average of 81 percent. Also, less than 60 percent of the clinics that provide immunizations accept children enrolled in the Medicaid and State Children”s Health Insurance Program.
The Medicaid and SCHIP programs provide health care services to low-income families.
The study found that county health departments in the state”s rural areas offset the problems posed by limited access to “private providers.”
The study also recommended finding ways to coax more physicians and clinics
especially those in urban areas
into offering immunizations.
“We need to increase our recruitment of private providers, especially in the larger, more populated areas,” said Gianfranco Pezzino, director of public health studies at the health institute.
“I don”t think we”ve done a good job of educating providers in general,” said Dr. Pam Shaw, director of ambulatory services at the University of Kansas Medical Center and president of the Kansas Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“We need to reach out to providers, talk to them and find out what the problems are and try to solve them,” Shaw said. “Then we”ll get more people involved.”
Shaw said allowing pharmacists to immunize children wasn”t a good idea because it would decrease the opportunities for contact with a family doctor.
The committee took no action on the bills.
Dave Ranney and Jim McLean are staff writers for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. They can be reached at 785-233-5443.