Rolling up the Sleeve: Equitable, Efficient, and Safe COVID-19 Mass Immunization for Academic Medical Center Employees

Samuel Mcdonald, Mujeeb A. Basit, Seth Toomay, Christopher Mclarty, Susan Hernandez, Chris Rubio, Bruce J. Brown, Mark Rauschuber, Ki Lai, Sameh N. Saleh, Du Wayne L. Willett, Christoph U. Lehmann, Richard J. Medford

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background ?Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine administration has faced distribution barriers across the United States. We sought to delineate our vaccine delivery experience in the first week of vaccine availability, and our effort to prioritize employees based on risk with a goal of providing an efficient infrastructure to optimize speed and efficiency of vaccine delivery while minimizing risk of infection during the immunization process. Objective ?This article aims to evaluate an employee prioritization/invitation/scheduling system, leveraging an integrated electronic health record patient portal framework for employee COVID-19 immunizations at an academic medical center. Methods ?We conducted an observational cross-sectional study during January 2021 at a single urban academic center. All employees who met COVID-19 allocation vaccine criteria for phase 1a.1 to 1a.4 were included. We implemented a prioritization/invitation/scheduling framework and evaluated time from invitation to scheduling as a proxy for vaccine interest and arrival to vaccine administration to measure operational throughput. Results ?We allotted vaccines for 13,753 employees but only 10,662 employees with an active patient portal account received an invitation. Of those with an active account, 6,483 (61%) scheduled an appointment and 6,251 (59%) were immunized in the first 7 days. About 66% of invited providers were vaccinated in the first 7 days. In contrast, only 41% of invited facility/food service employees received the first dose of the vaccine in the first 7 days (p < 0.001). At the vaccination site, employees waited 5.6 minutes (interquartile range [IQR]: 3.9-8.3) from arrival to vaccination. Conclusion ?We developed a system of early COVID-19 vaccine prioritization and administration in our health care system. We saw strong early acceptance in those with proximal exposure to COVID-19 but noticed significant difference in the willingness of different employee groups to receive the vaccine.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1074-1081
Number of pages8
JournalApplied Clinical Informatics
Volume12
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2021

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • electronic health record
  • employee health
  • immunization
  • patient portal

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Informatics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Health Information Management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Rolling up the Sleeve: Equitable, Efficient, and Safe COVID-19 Mass Immunization for Academic Medical Center Employees'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this