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Ofek Laks

KINS 4306

Project
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This semester at Lake Country Medical Group (LCMG), the project I decided to work on

for my internship duties is the creation of a travel immunization clinic at the office. Lake

Country Medical Group already has a clinic established for routine immunizations, so while

conducting research on travel immunizations, I decided to also come up with recommendations

on how the current clinic at the office could be improved. The objective or goal of my project

was to develop a business plan on how the day to day clinic will run and my recommendations

for the clinics and how it can be implemented for Lake Country Medical Group.

The first problem I noticed while conducting my research was how there were not many

travel immunization clinics in the area where the main population of LCMG patients are located,

so the creation of this clinic will make it easier and save the drive for the majority of the

population. Another problem that was brought to my attention was the statistics of the population

when it came to becoming immunized and how it can impact ones health. In my research, I had

found that: 45,000 adults in the United States die annually from complications that are vaccine

preventable diseases, 70% of adults are not up to date with their routine immunizations, and 13%

of Lake Country patients have been into the office in the past year for immunization

appointments including the vaccination of COVID-19. Vaccinations are important due to the fact

that they help work with the body's defenses to protect against diseases. This is crucial

information since the patients at Lake Country Medical group are diagnosed with heart

conditions, and there are vaccine preventable diseases that could lead to heart attacks or strokes

for example the influenza vaccine.

For the current vaccine clinic in the office, what I did for my project was that I started

with asking the nurse who is in charge of the daily operations on how she runs the clinic and

what she wishes on what would be changed. What stood out to me was how many patients are
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unknown if they are up to date with their vaccinations and the current system being used at the

clinic. After conducting my research, my business plan recommendations for how this could be

changed was the addition of a questionnaire to the “Annual Wellness Visit” forms that the

patients fill out. The questionnaire would ask the patient questions including: “Are you up to date

with immunizations?, and Would you like to set up an appointment with the nurse for

immunizations”. This questionnaire has the potential to be beneficial because when the patient

comes into the office for the yearly visit, the provider can look at their form and recommend

directly to become up to date with their immunizations.

The next task I did was I found a new vaccine distributor that would be able to benefit the

office not only for the current vaccine clinic, but also provide for the travel immunization clinic.

The current program that LCMG uses is Vaxcare which aids in keeping track of patients and

which vaccinations had been administered to them and when, but the issue with this program is

they do not offer all the drugs that are required for the travel clinic. The new program I had

found is called “Vaxserve” which offers more drugs and it can be downloaded onto computers

instead of having to purchase a device which does the monitoring like the Vaxcare program. My

final recommendation and task for the routine immunization clinic was the creation of posters

and educational materials that can be placed in the office waiting room so patients can view these

before their appointments and it would be fresh in their minds. What I wish I had done

differently for this section of the project is create my own educational materials that could be

placed on the walls of the office, but instead I found educational materials that were posted on

the CDC website.

The creation of my business plan for the travel immunization clinic was my favorite part

of the project because not only I got to learn how to create a business plan for the healthcare
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industry, but I also got to become more informed of what vaccinations are needed to travel to

specific destinations. A travel immunization clinic is needed in order to provide the proper

vaccinations and protection against diseases that can be contracted in foreign countries. Some

common diseases that travel immunizations are needed for are: Yellow Fever, Malaria. Typhoid,

and Japanese Encephalitis. These vaccinations can help protect patients while traveling and also

the population from spreading the disease post travel. To start the creation of my business plan, I

started conducting research on which vaccine is needed for which travel destinations and how

they could affect the body. I then conducted more research on other travel clinics and how Lake

Country can stand out with the creation of ours.

The next step was to find a program that could provide the vaccinations to the office,

which I recommended the use of Vaxserve program. I then started to come up and write out the

daily operations for the clinic. My idea for the clinic is to have its own “section” of the office,

where patients can walk in through a door and be able to get their vaccinations without the fuss

of the front desk. This portion of the clinic will feature both routine and travel immunizations

and booking appointments will all happen through its own phone number so the front desk can

focus on appointments for the office. Another task was marketing, there can be educational

materials be placed in the office for patients to see the creation of the clinic and then it can be

brought up in conversation with the provider. What I wish I could of done differently with this

portion of the project was again to create my own educational materials. The CDC offers great

materials, but it could feel more personable if the materials being shown to the patients were

created by myself.

In the end, I never got to see if my business plan was put into place since the creation of a

clinic can take much more time than the duration of my internship. From the evaluation of my
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supervisor, he had mentioned how they were going to use my business plan for further additions

into the office and eventually the creation of the clinic. What I wish I could of done differently is

be able to do more logistics of how I could actually put this program into place instead of mostly

research. I am very grateful I was able to complete this project for Lake Country Medical Group

and I cannot wait to see how they use my research and business plan for the benefit of their

patients and to build more patient relationships. Overall this internship experience has helped me

grow professionally and become more passionate about the healthcare field. This project has also

helped me develop skills I can bring with me into my future career path of health administration.