Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S., discusses whether available treatments are actually getting to patients with influenza.
Transcript:
Historically, there’s been an understanding that influenza has been undertreated despite having medication available. The reason that we did this study is we wanted to better understand how effectively patients were being treated for influenza. We know that we want to get people vaccinated for influenza, but there can be breakthrough. And we do have medication to treat patients for influenza, and we want to understand how well patients are being treated.
Dr. Grannis describes the simple step policymakers can take to change influenza outcomes.
Transcript:
Policymakers should consider supporting initiatives that will enable faster testing, improving access to antivirals and reducing barriers to timely treatment. People home test for COVID-19 all the time. There’s less home testing of influenza. If we could increase the rate of home testing, we might actually get ahead of this.
Dr. Grannis discusses the next steps needed to protect high-risk populations from influenza.
Transcript:
Based on these findings, future research should explore those barriers that prevent timely prescribing and dispensing in older adults. I think that we should be studying the impact of clinical decision support tools on improving the prescribing rate. Regenstrief investigators do a lot of work in clinical decision support, and I think this would be a great place for us to take a look at that. I think that we should look at the potential benefits of expanding rapid molecular testing to be more prevalent in the urgent care and emergency department settings, and I think that we should be studying the long-term trends of using antivirals and how that impacts patient outcomes.
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