Reduced hours Monday July 5th
June 13, 2010 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
We will have reduced hours on Monday, July 5th in observance of July 4th holiday. We are planning to be open the first half of the day with reduced number of providers. Regular hours will resume July 6th.
Remember safe firework practices. Tips available at parents.com
Asthma Improvement Project
June 2, 2010 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Our clinic has been involved in a national project involving 9 practices in Oregon along with 3 other states to improve care for patients with asthma. We have already seen improvement in setting clear care plans, giving out education material and measuring lung functions more often. Learn more here. Asthma resource section coming soon.
Recall on Tylenol and other OTC products
May 4, 2010 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Products affected included Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Zyrtec and Benadryl. Visit McNeil Product Recall site for information regarding concerns and how to get your product refunded or replaced.
Winter illnesses have arrived
February 14, 2010 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Our office is experiencing increasing demand for visits in last 2 weeks. We are adding hours and appointment times in an attempt to keep up with demand. If your child needs a same day appointment please call early in the day. Read more
Weekly update – 2/3/2010
February 3, 2010 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Online Secure Patient Portal
Our online secure patient portal is changing slightly. The integration between the portal and our medical record system is changing such that we needed to better assure accurate account creation and matching. For this reason we have disabled the ability to create accounts online. To request an activation email for an account just let our office know you are interested and tell us which email you would like associated with your child’s online account. Each child gets their own account. Features include requesting appointments, requesting prescription refills, pay your bill online and securely communicating with our staff and doctors online. Our hope is to decrease your time on hold and provide more direct communication for non-urgent issues. Please allow 24 hours for response to any online requests. Give us a call if you have a more urgent need.
Features available will be the same for the time being. One new feature will be ability to start to fill your reason for visit and symptoms online when you request an appointment. Be sure to let our nurse know who is checking you in that you did this online as it will be available in our medical record system at the time of your visit. At this time the feature is not yet working, but should be active and functional in the next 1-2 weeks.
2010 Flu Season
We are happy to report that as of this date winter flu season has been mild. We are hopeful due to record setting numbers of children vaccinated. We still have a few doses of H1N1 influenza vaccine and seasonal nasal vaccine remaining. To date we have vaccinated over 5000 children for seasonal flu and nearly 4000 for H1N1 influenza. We continue to be confident in the safety of the vaccine as our clinic has not seen any serious reactions to the vaccine. All vaccines are monitored through centralized reporting system called VAERS. Report does not always mean problem was directly caused by vaccine but attention is paid to high numbers of reports or patterns of reports. The safety data continues to be equal to seasonal influenza vaccines with about 8000 reports out of 122 million doses shipped. The exact number given is not known but in Oregon 84% of shipped vaccine has been given to patients. 94% of reactions are classified as non-serious. To see report for yourself visit VAERS H1N1 Reports.
Influenza update (12/16)
December 15, 2009 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Influenza activity in Oregon continues to decline significantly. We anticipate seasonal flu (strains besides H1N1) to increase during typical flu season of December to April with peak in February. It is unknown if H1N1 strain will increase during that time. For latest updates on flu activity check out CDC Flu Updates
There is a new report today of concern regarding decreased efficacy of some lots of pre-filled syringe form of vaccine. This vaccine is only for children ages 6 months to 35 months. By our records small minority of vaccines administered came from one of the lot numbers of concern. It is NOT a safety recall. This does not affect mutli-dose vials (which is vast majority of our injectable form and form given to kids passed their 3rd birthday) or nasal vaccine. At this time recommendation is to complete two dose series as recommended. No extra doses are recommended at this time. No further action is recommended for any parents of children who received a vaccine from the lots. We did have a few doses remaining from the lot numbers and will not be using those in patients starting today. For more information visit CDC update.
We have been receiving increasing numbers of vaccine and now have adequate vaccine for all patients on our wait-list. Please call our office to schedule an appointment if you were previously on wait-list. If your child has an upcoming appointment already scheduled for another issue just be sure to ask your provider at that visit about receiving the vaccine. We have also received more seasonal flu vaccine and currently have both vaccines available for all age groups in both injectable and nasal forms. Nasal vaccine is only recommended for children over age 2 without chronic illnesses like asthma. A second dose is recommended for all children under age 10 at least 28 days after first dose. We have adequate supplies of vaccine to give booster doses.
H1N1 Vaccine now recommended for all priority groups
December 9, 2009 by Kenneth Carlson, MD
Oregon State Department of Health has broadened recommendations to again include all CDC priority groups. Due to short vaccine supply they had previously recommended deferring vaccine for healthy kids age 5 to 24 years old. Vaccine supply has improved in the state and we have are experiencing the same in our office. We will be using our established wait list to get vaccine to all who want it. If you’ve already requested to be on the wait list you do not need to request again. We are continuing to do about 200 shots each Saturday with additional flu clinics during the week.
Seasonal flu vaccine is also available again. We have it for all age groups. If you would like to schedule a flu shot appointment for seasonal flu vaccine just give our office a call. Just like H1N1 vaccine we are scheduling about one week at a time with additional demand being placed on a wait list.
Thank you to all our families for their patience. We are hopeful we will be able to get vaccine to all our patients.
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