Community Practice Connections™: Medical Crossfire®: Are You Up to Date on Vaccinations? Incorporating Guideline-Based Care to Ensure Shingles Prevention in Your Patients

Target Audience
This educational program is directed toward all attendees of Family Medicine Experience (FMX) 2020. Other health care providers who may be vaccinating patients for shingles will also be invited to participate in the online enduring program.

Program Overview
The lifetime incidence of shingles is 10% to 20%, and incidence rises with advancing age. While shingles has a relatively short disease duration, the risk of transmitting the varicella-zoster virus and causing chickenpox in household contacts and the risk of developing complications, such as postherpetic pain, add to the disease burden. In the primary care setting, it is important to recognize risk factors for the development of shingles to provide therapeutic plans based on patient age, comorbidities, and vaccination options.

This Community Practice Connection™ program provides an in-depth review of some of the key highlights from the virtual symposium at the Family Medicine Experience (FMX) American Academy of Family Physician’s annual meeting held October 13-17, 2020. This unique and engaging multi-media activity is ideal for the community-based clinician and focuses on the practical aspects of the prevention of herpes zoster and puts recent clinical trial data into clinical context. The program is designed for those who did not attend the live meeting and to help reinforce learnings for those who did.

Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this activity, you should be better able to:

Recognize the disease burden, cost of care, and long-term sequelae associated with herpes zoster infection
Review the administration characteristics, composition, and features of available shingles vaccines
Evaluate the efficacy data associated with available shingles vaccines
Develop therapeutic plans for administration of shingles vaccines in appropriate patient groups