Influenza sends about 200,000 Americans to the hospital each year, on average, and thousands of patients die of the illness. That morbidity and mortality burden can be greatly reduced by widespread influenza immunization, yet ensuring that each of your patients gets vaccinated is no easy task.

Here are six key steps you can take this flu season to help your patients get the protection afforded by vaccination, according to Capt. Carolyn Bridges, MD, associate director of adult and influenza immunizations in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

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