Abstract
Purpose: This quality improvement project was designed to raise the levels of adolescent HPV vaccination rates in a rural county in North Dakota.|Background: Three barriers to achieving this goal include a lack of knowledge on the behalf of parents concerning the need for an HPV vaccine, the lack of primary care providers’ engagement with parents concerning the need to vaccinate, and missed opportunities due to logistical constraints of a rural clinic.|Method: To address the reported disparities, three strategies were developed: 1) primary care providers were given a tips and advice sheet designed to aid their interaction with parents, 2) an educational pamphlet was given to parents immediately prior to the appointment, and 3) a flag was placed in the electronic medical record (EMR) to alert nurses that an eligible adolescent had been checked-in.|Sample/Setting: The target population were male and female adolescents aged 13 to 17 years, parents of those male and female adolescents, clinic nurses checking in patients, and the providers at the involved clinic. The sampling was a non-probability based, convenience sample consisting of adolescents and their parents as well as the captive clinic nurses and primary care providers.|Results: Four out of five providers were not using any published tips and advice sheet prior to strategy implementation, but agreed unanimously that it was beneficial. The educational pamphlet answered questions held by parents; however, many parents declined to answer a question concerning their primary source of trusted information about vaccines. Finally, the EMR alert was supported by the nurses, although it was agreed that the implementation needs to be improved.|Conclusion: Primary Care Providers should be supplied with a published tips and advice sheet designed to aid their conversation with parents while also providing an educational pamphlet to parents immediately prior to their visit.