MICNP Podcast S2 E2: Empowering Providers: Evidence-Based Vaccine Education with Gianna Eagle

In this episode, Gianna Eagle, a registered nurse and DNP student, discusses the importance of evidence-based vaccine information, addressing vaccine hesitancy, and the role of healthcare providers in policy advocacy.

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Key  topics:

• Vaccine education and evidence-based information
• Addressing vaccine hesitancy in clinical practice
• The impact of health policy on immunization
• Resources for reputable vaccine information
• Provider communication strategies

Takeaways:

• Providers need access to reputable, evidence-based vaccine information.
• Effective communication about vaccines can reduce hesitancy.
• Nurse practitioners can influence health policy for better immunization practices.
• Addressing misinformation requires trust-building and clear messaging.
• Resources like the American Academy of Pediatrics are vital for guidance

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:33 Gianna Eagle's Background and DNP Project
01:26 Focus on Vaccine Education and Hesitancy
02:34 The Impact of Vaccine Hesitancy and Outbreaks
03:08 Gianna's Passion for Vaccine Advocacy
04:00 The Role of Policy in Immunization
05:22 Communication Challenges with Patients
06:10 Finding Reputable Vaccine Resources
07:38 Advocacy and Policy Change by Providers
10:03 Addressing Provider Confidence in Vaccine Counseling
11:25 Personal Impact of Vaccine Misinformation
12:13 Goals for Improving Vaccine Education and Practice
13:02 Closing Remarks and Next Steps

Resources:
American Academy of Pediatrics - https://www.aap.org
American Academy of Family Physicians - https://www.aafp.org
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology - https://www.acog.org

Theme music

• Keyboard, Bass: Clementine Kanfom 
• Guitar: Tyler McDonald 
• Drums: Andrew Padfield 
• Mixed, Mastered: Andrew Padfield 

Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners (MICNP): Website

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Transcript

Rachel Hetzner (01:41)
Welcome to the MICNP Podcast, where we have Gianna Eagle, a registered nurse and Wayne State University DNP FNP student joining us. Hello, my name is Rachel Hetzner, president-elect for Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners and co-host of the MyCamp Podcast.

Dr. Justin Hooks (01:58)
Hi everyone, I'm Dr. Justin Hooks, Chair of the Education Committee for MICNP and the other co-hosts of the My Camp podcast. And boy, is it good to be back.

Gianna Eagle (02:07)
Hello, my name is Gianna Eagle. I'm a registered nurse with a background in ICU, emergency and public health nursing. I'm also currently a Wayne State University DNP student and I'm here to talk about my DNP project.

Dr. Justin Hooks (02:18)
Awesome. Welcome Gianna. We're so glad to have you a part of our podcast today. So tell us about your

Rachel Hetzner (02:23)
Welcome, welcome.

Dr. Justin Hooks (02:24)
interesting project that you have at Wayne's Day, Go Warriors.

Gianna Eagle (02:28)
Yes. Go warriors. Awesome. Love it.

Rachel Hetzner (02:31)
My alma mater. I went there for DMP school too.

Dr. Justin Hooks (02:33)
Mm-hmm.

Gianna Eagle (02:36)
So my project focuses on educating healthcare providers on where to obtain current evidence-based vaccine information. as we know, the recommendations are often changing when new products become available and you know, how we observe trends of deadly viruses.

I'm also focused on new ways of educating providers on how to address vaccine hesitancy with their patients.

Rachel Hetzner (02:56)
What makes you so passionate about vaccine advocacy in particular and provider education also?

Gianna Eagle (03:02)
so per UNICEF, some research that I found on their website, it looked like immunization rates in the United States as a country have slowly been declining over the last five years for a variety of diseases. notably measles and varicella to name a few. and with popularity of international travel nowadays, disease incidence increases at a much faster rate and on a more widespread scale.

So a really worrying example that I can think of this recently was in Washington County when there was a measles outbreak. it was linked to an unvaccinated in unvaccinated individual after a trip to Florida. And there were seven confirmed cases total in one hospitalization. so as we already know, diseases such as measles have harmful and potentially fatal sequelae, which necessitates prevention. And one of the best ways to do that is through immunization.

Dr. Justin Hooks (03:47)
That's true. That's really good.

Rachel Hetzner (03:48)
Yep. I

think it's really important that to understand that, you know, we don't live in a bubble. We there's people that are traveling, even if you yourself are not traveling outside of the country, outside of your local area, there's people that are going all around the world that are potentially exposed to different things and could bring that back and infect a a whole population there. So

Where did your passion for vaccine advocacy and provider education begin?

Gianna Eagle (04:16)
so obviously, you know, learning about pathophysiology in my even in my undergrad background and as well as an NP, I learned how important it was from a public health perspective and for a personal health perspective to really advocate for vaccines. but when I performed research for the project, I learned also about barriers to immunization and access to evidence-based vaccine information. And I started making connections to what I had observed in my clinical rotations.

And there surely is like real world impact that stems from these issues, the inability to effectively vaccine counsel patients, and also from health policy that might not align with current scientific consensus.

Dr. Justin Hooks (04:53)
Which is amazing. That's like Rachel is our health policy expert here. She teaches it actually at U of Flint. And so yeah, which is really cool.

Rachel Hetzner (05:01)
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. I went

Gianna Eagle (05:01)
Wow.

Rachel Hetzner (05:04)
I I went to the AANP Health Policy Conference and I caught up with Dr. Oz's chief's chief of staff who had a speech that was at the conference to have some conversations about about public health and whatnot and won't go into details, but

Yeah, had s had some good good conversation there. And I think that the misalignment between our our policy and our our vaccine hesitancy and and all of that, it's a great opportunity for nurse practitioners to kind of fill those gaps.

Gianna Eagle (05:41)
Yes. And there are definitely a lot of different strategies that nurse practitioners can take when counseling vaccine hesitant patients. some will introduce the topic, note that there's some uncomfortability with it and kind of just try to acknowledge it's the patient's choice. Let's move forward.

And then there are others who really engage in the conversation and take the time to acknowledge concerns but also provide education and kind of leave the door open for, you know,

Rachel Hetzner (06:08)
Mm-hmm.

Gianna Eagle (06:09)
hopefully some progress to be made.

Rachel Hetzner (06:10)
Absolutely.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:11)
Yeah.

That's really amazing because what I do like in my practice for I work as an HIV specialist and so a lot of the stuff we do like acute hepatitis panels to make sure that someone that has HIV doesn't also have hepatitis at the same time. But we what we also learn is that they're not immune to heptides A, even though that they've been vaccinated in the past or even heptice B. So

Rachel Hetzner (06:34)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:35)
You know, personally I can definitely see how those conversations can be really uncomfortable for providers, especially

Rachel Hetzner (06:41)
Yeah.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:41)
when misinformation has caused a lot of people to develop strong opinions that aren't based on science. And so it's almost as

Rachel Hetzner (06:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:49)
though we kinda avoid the uncertainty, right, Gianna?

Gianna Eagle (06:52)
Yeah.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:52)
So

Rachel Hetzner (06:52)
Yeah.

Dr. Justin Hooks (06:52)
would it help if we were regularly updated on the latest and greatest so that we can, you know, educate our patients or where can providers find like the best evidence based vaccine information? 'Cause I struggle with this myself.

Gianna Eagle (07:07)
Yeah, and I definitely do as well. so I found I find that two of the biggest gaps are where to find reputable information, like you mentioned, and a lack of effective vaccine counseling techniques. so some really good areas to find reputable information that's free from bias are the American Academy of Pediatricians and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

and as well as the American College of Obstetrics and Ginecologists. their vaccine recommendations weren't affected by the inconsistencies and like certain policy changes. and so that's a really great resource for providers.

Rachel Hetzner (07:40)
So you've highlighted the importance of evidence based education at the provider level. how does that connect to the bigger picture of health policy and why it's so important for providers to be involved in advocating for this vaccine related policy reform today?

Gianna Eagle (07:55)
Yeah. So at the local level, our work is really important for educating patients. But another really great role that we have as advanced practice providers is that we can lobby for health policy change. And so we can take our knowledge on evidence-based guidelines to the capital and really inform these politicians on why these policies are, you know, economically savvy as well as better for the public.

Dr. Justin Hooks (08:21)
That's amazing.

Rachel Hetzner (08:21)
Yeah, I think I think we have a responsibility as experts in this area to share what we know and advocate for policy changes too. So what gaps do you currently see in provider education around vaccines?

Gianna Eagle (08:35)
So two of the biggest gaps I see currently in provider education around vaccines are where to find the reputable evidence based information, which we covered and discussed. and there's also a growing need for training on how to address vaccine hesitancy. addressing misinformation effectively by knowing the science is one thing, but communicating it in a way that builds trust is a completely different skill set.

And I don't always effectively see it implemented in practice.

This is anecdotal evidence, of course, but there were some providers that I shadowed who didn't feel fully comfortable in addressing difficult conversations with patients. and there were others who were more confident in their ways of addressing patient concerns, but also still providing education.

Rachel Hetzner (09:17)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Justin Hooks (09:18)
Well, so

the the topic that you have is really spot on and it's kind of it touches personal to me. I have a really good friend of mine that recently was diagnosed with head and neck cancer. And when I reached out to that person when they told me, I asked, is it HPV related or not?

And what they said was yes, it was HPV related. And it kind of struck me because I was like, Did you get the vaccine? And unfortunately, they were past the age frame of it. And so, you know, the interesting thing, you like you talked about misinformation. A lot of people are hesitant even to have the HPV vaccine and they don't understand that it's not only just a genital problem, that it's head and neck cancer as well as

rectal cancer

Gianna Eagle (10:07)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Justin Hooks (10:08)
that I also see as well. And so I'm really honored to have you here today. So, you know, kind of as we wrap up, what do you hope we're gonna accomplish and not only just this episode, but the next two episodes that are coming out?

Gianna Eagle (10:22)
my hope is that what we're accomplishing is a space where providers can access clear evidence-based vaccine information in a way that's practical and easy to apply. I want this to be something that reinforces science and evidence-based practice, but also something that helps provide providers feel more confident in vaccine counseling their patients.

Dr. Justin Hooks (10:39)
That's really great. And I think we're gonna accomplish that. I really do with this. And again, it's amazing. This is just the first episode. So everyone, please stay tuned for our other two episodes with our vaccine expert. And on that note, I think we can wrap things up until we hear more, where we discuss immunization counseling, success stories, we're open up the discussion for strategies we've used when talking with vaccine hesitant patients.

Whether you're student, whether you're a seasoned nurse practitioner, healthcare leader, we're here to keep you informed, inspired, and connected. Tune in as we amplify the voice of nurse practitioners and work together to shape the future of healthcare. Subscribe now and stay tuned for expert conversations, legislative updates, and the latest in NP practice in Michigan. You can't wait for our next episode. Trust me. It's coming soon.

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