Aim
Black Americans are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, and twice as likely to become hospitalized with COVID than their white counterparts. Thus far, they are also statistically under-vaccinated for COVID-19, largely due to both difficulty in accessing the shots and an underlying mistrust of the larger health care industry. The intent of this program was to begin to address these inequities, partner with local church and faith leaders and with organizations such as Mercy Health which has been treating people in this neighborhood for over a century. The initial goal was to provide vaccines to elderly people in the 1A and 1B vaccination phases who may be less comfortable with technology.
Intervention and Design
Clinic 1 - February 13th, 2021
Led by Dr. Kathleen Lee, Dr. Eugenia South, Lauren Hahn, Neda Khan and many others, the team reached out to pastors and other faith leaders in the community to organize a mass vaccination event targeted at older and more vulnerable citizens. Pastors were initially asked to collect phone numbers from congregants who would be interested in getting vaccinated. In addition, an SMS based program was set up that citizens could text into to indicate interest as well as schedule their appointment. Additional demographic information was also collected during this process such as age, name, date of birth etc. A similar flow was set up using IVR (Interactive Voice Recording) to provide an alternate channel for less tech-savvy individuals.
Between the three channels, the 500 slots were filled in less than 24 hours. A tremendous amount of work went into the operational aspects of this including paper forms, data collection to report back to the city, logistics of setting up the site, flows of people and associated stations and more.
Main Outcomes and Measures
- Number of patients vaccinated: 550
- Wait times: Minimal to none. No lines.
- NPS score: 90 with 330+ respondents
Way to Health Use
- Bulk CSV upload: Bulk upload of citizen lists provided by pastors
- Bi-directional text messaging: Self enrollment into the program. Data such as demographics (age, gender, race, DOB etc.) and appointment time (based on availability) automatically captured.
- Interactive Voice Recording (IVR): Same flow as above. For this initial version, IVR was disconnected from SMS and appt slots given the short timeline to go-live (less than one week).
Clinic 2 - February 27th, 2021
The same team built on the learnings from the first clinic and further refined the program. To be more inclusive, the site of this next clinic was switched to a local rec center. This was to address concerns of local Muslim communities and to also take advantage of larger space availability given the target is now 750+ vaccinations in the same time period.
For this clinic, the decision was made to make the entire interaction inbound i.e. community leaders would not need to collect phone numbers. They would just publicize the phone number(s) and interested citizens would either text or call those numbers. The flow was also enhanced to capture more information about allergies and more. INspitae of this added friction, we had 70 and 80 year old citizens complete the flow in it’s entirety. Between the two channels, the 750 slots were filled in less than 24 hours. There was hiccup in the process when someone tweeted one of the numbers and also posted it on Facebook. This led to a number of requests from non-qualified individuals (20 years olds with no significant health issues etc.). These had to be handled manually. We will enhance the program logic to address this case the best that we can going forward.
Main Outcomes and Measures after 6 clinics
- Number of patients vaccinated: 7500
- Black or brown vaccine recipients: 85%
- Wait times: <1 min
- NPS score: 90+
- Second dose show rate: 99.4%
Way to Health Use
- Bi-directional text messaging: Self enrollment into the program. Data such as demographics (age, gender, race, DOB etc.) and appointment time (based on availability) automatically captured.
- Interactive Voice Recording (IVR): Same flow as above. Integrated appointment availability.