August is National Immunization Month, and Essentia is urging families stay up to date

August is National Immunization Month, and Essentia Health wants to remind families to keep up to date.

WDIO spoke with Erin Labat, the immunization program manager for Essentia.

“This is that time of year we’re doing sports physicals and we’re doing our well-child checks, getting ready for school to start. And we have the ability within Essentia to get those patients in and get you up to date on your vaccines while you’re in doing your sports physicals or while you’re in doing your well-child checks,” Labat said.

She has three children of her own, and she’s found opportunities to bring them in. “I’ve been able to add some ancillary visits in for when I’ve had well-child checks for one of my children. I can add the other two in. I mean, you can do that by calling your pediatrician’s office and making those extra appointments.”

You can also utilize MyChart.

“With vaccines, the goal is to prevent some of some of the serious diseases that have happened in the past. And so getting our patients in and to get those routine vaccines is really important to help prevent outbreaks like we’ve heard of for measles and mumps that have happened in the past,” Labat added. “It also helps to protect our vulnerable population that are not able to be vaccinated. And that’s where that push to really get our kids in and start young is is coming from.”