This summer, people across the country have made plans for international travel. In fact, experts are saying that the summer of 2022 could be the busiest travel season since before the pandemic, with CNN warning travelers to prepare for a “summer of chaos.” With an increasing number of people booking international trips, it’s important that healthcare providers have everything they need to provide patients with the necessary pre-travel immunizations and take the opportunity to ensure their patients are up-to-date on their routine vaccines during pre-travel health visits.

Routine vaccinations are recommended for adults, regardless of whether they travel or not. Though new reports suggest that many people have fallen behind on vaccinations. The reports suggest stay-at-home orders and fear of COVID-19 exposure have likely contributed to the decrease in vaccinations for measles, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, and tetanus.  As patients come back to see their healthcare providers it is important to take advantage of patient wellness visits, chronic care visits and even pre-travel visits to assess for overdue/due vaccines.

In a recent Forbes op-ed, American Express’s President of Travel Audrey Hendrey discussed the trends the company is seeing in terms of summer travel. Hendry listed London, Paris, Athens, and Rome as some of the top travel destinations for Americans this summer.

Providers can use pre-travel health visits to ensure adults, seniors and children are up-to-date on their vaccinations. It isn’t unusual for adult patients to fail to keep up with their immunizations, despite adults making up the majority of deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, about 50,000 to 70,000 adults die each year from pneumococcal infection, influenza, or hepatitis B. 

AccuVax by Trumed is a state-of-the-art vaccine storage and handling system with built-in safety checks that will streamline this process for providers and check to see if any routine immunizations have been missed.  Being partially vaccinated can put patients at risk when traveling, and pre-travel appointments can play an important role in catch-up measles, rubella, mumps, and varicella immunization for children and adults. 

With millions of people gearing up for summer travel and more people becoming eligible for their second COVID-19 booster shot, proper vaccine storage and inventory management is more important than ever. Many providers make common mistakes when storing and administering vaccines, including not recording vaccine storage temperature as often as is required, not using soonest to expire vaccines first, and more. 

TruMed’s AccuVax, a purpose-built, all-in-one vaccine management system, simplifies workflows and makes vaccine storage easy. AccuVax, unlike dormitory-style and combination units, can safely store both refrigerated and frozen vaccines in one unit. This system separates vaccines automatically, guarantees proper temperature control, and automates CDC and VFC compliance. In short, TruMed’s AccuVax vaccine storage and management system ensures providers can spend less time focusing on time-consuming tasks and more time focusing on their patients. 

Additionally, TruMed has developed a solution to automate inventory tracking and management for providers. AccuShelf® by TruMed® streamlines virtually every aspect of inventory control, helping providers stay compliant with federal requirements, replenish inventory when necessary, and record inventory intake and usage reliably.  Schedule a demo to learn more today.