Exploratory Research On Engineering The Service Sector: Collaborative Research: Research on Designing Vaccine Formularies for Childhood Immunization

儿童疫苗接种已成为美国儿童对抗传染病的最大单一防御措施。 此外，生物技术的突破使疫苗制造商有可能为许多疾病开发疫苗抗原。 这种创新的一个意外后果是，建议的儿童免疫接种时间表（由免疫实践咨询委员会提出）已经变得非常拥挤，以至于在该时间表中增加额外疫苗（因此增加注射）的前景可能不会受到卫生保健提供者或父母/监护人的欢迎。 这促使疫苗制造商开发将联合收割机几种抗原结合到一次注射中的疫苗产品。 这类疫苗被称为联合疫苗，允许将新的疫苗添加到计划中，而不会给父母/监护人带来额外负担，也不要求儿童在一次诊所就诊期间忍受不可接受的注射次数。 这些创新还为保健提供者创造了组合爆炸式的选择，随着免疫接种计划中增加更多的疫苗以及新的组合疫苗获准分发，这种选择将继续升级和扩大。 该项目的目标是设计运筹学模型，以捕获目前建议的儿童免疫接种计划中的所有疫苗，以及可能在未来十年内进入计划的疫苗，以制定和分析可用于确定新组合疫苗产品为卫生保健消费者提供良好价值的最高价格的优化模型，并进行敏感性分析，以确定新疫苗对最佳疫苗处方和疫苗价格的影响。本研究的结果提供了一个系统的方法，以比较和评估现有的和新的儿童疫苗在推荐的儿童免疫接种计划。 反过来，这将提供一个工具，可以使用业务研究模型来评估新疫苗和疫苗组合的机会，因此有可能提高免疫接种率，提供一套疫苗选择。 此外，开发的工具将提供一种机制，使保健提供者和消费者能够评估这类疫苗的经济价值，从而促进在儿科疫苗行业内应用市场原则。 这反过来也可能对这类疫苗的价格造成下行压力，这是一个引起全国严重关切的问题。 这项研究将与疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）的国家免疫计划人员合作进行。

Childhood vaccination has become the single greatest defense against infectious diseases among children in the United States. Moreover, biotechnology breakthroughs are making it possible for vaccine manufacturers to develop vaccine antigens for numerous diseases. One unplanned consequence of such innovations is that the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule (as set forth by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) has become sufficiently crowded that the prospect of adding additional vaccines (hence additional injections) to this schedule may not be well received by either health-care providers or parents/guardians. This has prompted vaccine manufacturers to develop vaccines products that combine several antigens into a single injection. Such vaccines, termed combination vaccines, permit new vaccines to be added to the schedule without placing additional burdens on parents/guardians, nor requiring children to endure an unacceptable number of injections during single clinic visits. Such innovations have also created a combinatorial explosion of choices for health-care providers that will continue to escalate and expand as additional vaccines are added to the immunization schedule and as new combination vaccines gain approved for distribution. The goals of this project are to design operations research models that capture all the vaccines that are presently in the recommended childhood immunization schedule, as well as vaccines that may enter the schedule over the next decade, to formulate and analyze optimization models that can be used to determine the maximal price at which new combination vaccine products provide good value to the health-care consumer, and to perform sensitivity analysis to determine the impact of new vaccines on the optimal vaccine formularies and vaccine prices.The results of this research provide a systematic approach to compare and evaluate existing and new pediatric vaccines within the recommended childhood immunization schedule. This, in turn, will provide a vehicle upon which opportunities for new vaccines and vaccine combinations can be evaluated using operations research models, hence has the potential to enhance immunization rates given the set of vaccine choices available. Moreover, the tools developed will provide a mechanism by which health-care providers and consumers can assess the economic value of such vaccines, hence facilitating the application of market principles within the pediatric vaccine industry. This in turn may also serve to put downward pressure on the prices of such vaccines, an issue of significant national concern. This research will be conducted in collaboration with personnel within the National Immunization Program at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).