Pneumonia: flu vaccine

An influenza shot can help prevent the flu in the future, even for patients who have been hospitalized for pneumonia. Thousands of patients die of flu in the U.S. each year.

About this measure

This measure tracks the percent of pneumonia patients who were given an influenza vaccine in the hospital during flu season. While patients may choose to decline the vaccine, a higher rate may indicate that a hospital provides a higher level of patient care.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital wants to provide the most up to date data. For this measure, our data is from a more recent time period than the benchmark time period.  

The vaccine for influenza is given to patients only during the flu season, October through March.  Because of this, there are some gaps in the trend graph below.  Data is not available for 2011 Q4 (June, July and August of 2011).  The data point for 2011 Q1 includes two months of data and the data point for 2011 Q2 includes one month of data.    

Note: In this case, a higher number is better.