AMA President: Patients trust their local doc when it comes to vaccines
October 2021 – Repertoire Magazine
When it comes to the public gaining more confidence in the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, local doctors have an important role to play in mitigating hesitancy, according to Dr. Gerald E. Harmon, President of the American Medical Association. That was one of several takeaways from Dr. Harmon in a recent #scheinchats YouTube video, where the AMA president spoke with Stan Bergman, Chairman and CEO of Henry Schein, about how the pandemic will continue to shape health care for years to come.
“Historically, we’ve had nothing to match this pandemic,” Dr. Harmon said. “And so we didn’t have the urgency to develop the vaccines and use that as an offensive weapon against this devastating virus. Now that we have them, the vaccines are absolutely effective. They’re incredibly safe. They’ve been rapidly developed with good technology, shelf technology that was already there, but we’ve never had a pandemic that allowed us to move through the bureaucratic and regulatory barriers that existed in previous vaccines over the years.”
However, Dr. Harmon said there’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding the vaccines. That’s where local doctors come in. “What people do, and we have studies that show this, they trust their local doctors, their family doctors, their frontline physicians to give them sound advice, to provide them good healthcare, and in the case of the vaccine, to give them the right defense against this virus.”
Patients surveyed
The Henry Schein Cares Foundation commissioned a survey to find how much the average American values the opinion of their primary care physician and how that opinion informs their decision to get the COVID vaccine or not. “The results clearly indicate that most Americans who are hesitant to get vaccinated say they’d be willing to change their minds about getting the COVID-19 vaccine if their doctor reached out to them, or if there were incentives involved,” according to the research.
Vaccine incentives are less likely to convince Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine than a visit to their primary care physician, new research suggests.
Conducted by OnePoll and commissioned by the Henry Schein Cares Foundation, the survey revealed that:
- 88% who went to a primary care physician before getting the vaccine (1,202 respondents) said their doctor’s advice was an instrumental factor in their decision.
- 88% also said they trust their primary care physician’s advice either completely or most of the time.
- It takes the average patient two years and nine months to establish a meaningful level of trust with their primary care physician.
- 94% of parents trust the advice of their child’s physician either completely or most of the time.
- 92% trust the advice of their child’s primary care dentist.
- Besides doctors, respondents cited the CDC (49%) as their primary source of COVID-19 information, followed by state health agencies/officials (47%) and their own family members (33%).
“The simplest way to convince people to get the vaccine is by getting a trusted medical professional involved,” said Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and current Co-Chair of the Henry Schein Cares Foundation’s board of directors. “The data from this survey ties in with what we’ve found, which is that an individual’s strong relationship with their primary care physician is essential for getting the right medical information and taking action to protect their health.”
Front and center
In the #scheinchats interview with Bergman, Dr. Harmon said local physicians need to be put front and center so that they can speak to their patients and simply administer the vaccine as they do with so many other vaccines.
Whereas the nation had to rely on mass vaccine sites in the initial ramp-up of vaccine distribution, the logistics have significantly improved for more physicians or practically any physician that would like access to these vaccines in their practices, Dr. Harmon said.
“It’s truly a remarkable achievement, a remarkable public-private partnership that we in this country obtained this vaccine, got this vaccine through the regulatory process in record speed. And these vaccines are effective.