BACKGROUND:
With the changes in influenza recommendations for the 2004-05 season, over 185 million Americans qualified to receive the influenza vaccine. These changes required many healthcare sites to educate their patient population regarding influenza, the influenza vaccine and changes to the recommendations.

OBJECTIVE:
To help healthcare professionals educate their patients and families about the influenza vaccine, the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia developed an influenza Q&A sheet.

METHOD:
A 2-sided, letter-sized Q&A sheet in pads of 50 answering the most common questions about influenza and the influenza vaccine was developed. A mass mailing campaign was completed to reach about 94,000 healthcare professionals across the country. The mailing included a combination announcement and order form and a copy of the Q&A sheet. Interest in the information was tracked by response with orders for the materials. Data will show database growth over this period, quantity of orders by state, and percent of orders by specialty.

RESULT:
Between August 1 and October 31, 2004, over 800,000 sheets in English and 250,000 sheets in Spanish were distributed.

CONCLUSION:
Mailing healthcare professionals directly with information regarding changes to vaccine recommendations and providing information free of charge is a useful way to disseminate information about vaccines.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1) To describe one possible method for distributing patient education information
2) To understand the response to this method