Covid-19 vaccination self-scheduling – why we’ve released our own vaccine management solution

By Robbie Hughes, Founder & CEO, Lumeon

We’ve been watching with interest as every health system has been rolling out substantial operational changes through their EMR over the last quarter, to ready themselves for the biggest vaccination campaign in my lifetime.

What we’ve seen from the market is, as expected, a wide diversity of opinion on how to get this right. From stadiums turned into parking lots for patients to line up for their shots, through to coordinated recall campaigns that are targeted at specifically the right individuals, the approaches span the gamut of healthcare delivery options.

At Lumeon, we invest heavily in defining operational protocols that deliver the most efficient and effective care for our partners and their patients, and as time has passed, we’ve seen convergence around protocols that work and those that don’t.

As a result, we decided to use the full power of the Lumeon platform to put together a complete operational solution that delivers best-in-class efficiency and efficacy in vaccine administration. An automated solution designed to scale, but also designed to be adapted to the specifics of how an individual health system might like to adjust their own protocols.

The key elements of the solution are:

Proactive outreach

Experience has shown that inviting vulnerable patients to wait in line for vaccines is not a path to success, and if we’re going to ensure that the pandemic comes to a swift end, we need to target the vaccine at the right patients, in the right order.

As a result, we let our partners in the analytics space subsegment and target their populations for engagement, and then provide us with a list to recall. An excel list is uploaded into Lumeon and the system then engages all patients using every channel available, inviting them to book in electronically.

Online scheduling

Once invited, it is not sufficient to hope that they do the right thing, we need to ensure that they actually convert. As a result, Lumeon’s scheduling engine is integrated into the offering to ensure that patients can book themselves indirectly to the slot of their choice, without having to make a phone call or wait. This ensures a seamless experience for the patient, as well as demand management for the health system. You can see instantly who you have invited, who has booked, who hasn’t, who has looked but not completed, and patients can even reschedule online if they need to move their slot.

Pre-visit surveys

Before the patient attends, we survey them to determine any issues that would prevent them from having a successful vaccination. Allergies, fears, recent medical history can all be captured and thus ensure that when the patient arrives, all they have to do is check-in, and the rest is taken care of.

Curbside check-in and reminders

Once reminded of their visit details, patients get a link to self-check-in, so they can stay in their vehicle without having to expose themselves to contact in a waiting area. Once they’re ready to be invited in, they get a notification on their phone by SMS and they’re good to go.

Batch number and dosage tracking

All the details of the vaccination can be stored in the solution and these are then used to ensure the patient is safely identifiable in the case of batch issues.

Perfect recall

Knowing the batch and the visit date, the system will then recall the patient for their second dose and ensure that they attend, entirely autonomously. Patients that haven’t self-scheduled for their second dose, but are due, are chased automatically and ultimately put on a worklist for a call by a clinician if required, and the process then repeats.

Fully automated

Of all the elements above, the only piece that requires any human intervention on the part of the health system is defining the target list, the actual administration of the dose, and the recording of batch details (assuming they’re not using a barcode scanner which is also supported). Everything else is fully automated, end-to-end.

We believe this process is the optimal way to ensure vaccines are delivered safely and efficiently to the population, and we look forward to supporting our partners in ensuring that as many people can be protected, as quickly and effectively as possible.

We’d be happy to share experience gained in operationalizing these types of programs and the best practice we’ve gathered over the past 10 years. For more information on managing Covid-19 vaccination campaigns and vaccine scheduling click here.