Improving adherence to hepatitis B vaccine administration recommendations in two newborn nurseries.

Administration of the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine is an important step in reducing perinatally acquired hepatitis B infection, yet the USA is below the Healthy People 2020 goal for rate of administration.In response to updated Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices recommendations to administer the dose within 24 hours of birth, we used quality improvement methodology to implement changes that would increase the vaccination rates of healthy newborns in our nurseries. The goal was to improve the proportion of infants who receive the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth to >90% within a 2-year period, with a secondary goal of increasing vaccination rates prior to discharge from the nursery to >95%.

An exploratory comparison of medication lists at hospital admission with administrative database records.

Background: Medication reconciliation is recognized as important, but no one method has been recommended. Research has shown that the most common medication reconciliation errors are attributable to omitted medications and doses. The pharmacy claims aggregator used in this evaluation is a private company that gathers pharmacy claims data from disparate pharmacy benefit managers into a secure repository (hereafter referred to as the claims database) under contracts with public and private health plans.