Pediatric Inpatient Immunizations: A Literature Review

Timely vaccine uptake in children remains suboptimal. Eliminating missed opportunities is key to increasing childhood immunization rates, and hospitalization offers another potential setting to vaccinate.

To better understand pediatric inpatient immunization programs, including vaccination rates of inpatients, parental and provider attitudes, barriers to vaccine delivery, and interventions to increase provision of inpatient vaccines.

A search was conducted of PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science to identify articles and conference abstracts related to pediatric inpatient immunization.

Inclusion criteria were studies published in English between January 1990 and January 2019 in which pediatric vaccination in the hospital setting was discussed. Findings from 30 articles and conference abstracts were summarized and organized by topic area.

Abstracts were screened for relevance, articles were read, and themes were identified.

Children who are hospitalized have been shown to have lower immunization rates compared with the general population, with 27% to 84% of pediatric inpatients due or overdue for vaccines nationally when verified with official records. Unfortunately, little is done to catch up these children once they have been identified. Access to accurate vaccine histories remains a major barrier in inpatient immunization programs because providers frequently under document and parents over recall a child's vaccine status. Strategies identified to increase inpatient vaccination included creation of a multidisciplinary immunization team, educational interventions, visual reminders, catch-up vaccine plans, order sets, and nursing-driven screening. When offered inpatient vaccination, a majority of parents accepted immunizations for their children.

Hospitalization may provide an opportunity to augment vaccine uptake. Further research is needed to develop evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers to inpatient vaccination.