According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in three people will experience zoster in their lifetime.1 Nearly all adults over the age of 50 are at risk for zoster. The risk of developing HZ has been observed to increase substantially with age.2
Importance of managing at-risk patients
There is no way to predict when the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) will reactivate, who will develop zoster, or how severe any individual case may be.
Effectively managing the health tools of this patient population requires both access to patient data and to efficiently put this data to use. It’s important to identify and educate patients who have had chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), since they are at risk to develop zoster.
Automate your population management
As a provider, it’s vital you make discussing zoster a routine part of preventive care in your office, especially with older patients who may present more at-risk. NextGen Care enables care management and patient outreach from a single integrated platform. Providers and their care teams can manage patient population and control tasks from a simple dashboard screen. Point-of-care alerts help care managers fast-track patients for intervention and follow-up.
Proactive care welcomed
You can run a population health campaign that allows you to identify which patients are at risk for Shingles. Using NextGen Patient Portal, providers can proactively send alerts to their patients anytime, anywhere through automated outreach based on each patient’s contact preference. Patients have the opportunity to become active participants in their own healthcare.
This Article is provided as an educational resource by Merck & Co., Inc.
References 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). MMWR Recomm Rep. 2008;57(RR-5):1–30. 2. Insinga RP, Itzler RF, Pellissier JM, et al. The incidence of herpes zoster in a United States administrative database. J Gen Intern Med. 2005;20(8):748–753.
Copyright © 2016 Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
VACC-1175786-0004 08/16