Creating public health informatics tools to efficiently implement mass vaccination clinics

Background: Informatics tools can help local health departments respond to an influenza pandemic and efficiently manage their vaccination planning efforts, ensure vaccines are targeted to persons in the recommended priority groups, appropriately screen immunization candidates for the correct vaccine type, help agencies cope with uncertain amounts/types of vaccine and uncertain public demand, and minimize patient wait times while significantly enhancing customer satisfaction.

Objective/purpose: Demonstrate how advance registration and other web-based tools can greatly facilitate mass vaccination clinic implementation.

Methods: In Larimer County, CO, several web-based tools were used to facilitate H1N1 vaccination efforts. An online and phone advance registration system was developed for those seeking vaccinations. This system allowed appointments to be spread evenly over all hours of clinic operation, ensured that initially only high-risk registrants were scheduled, accelerated patient form completion by asking most screening questions in advance, ensured an adequate vaccine supply at each clinic by restricting the number of registrant slots to the number of available vaccines/number of staff available to give vaccines, and provided information about community demand in real time before the actual clinics. Online registration for volunteers was also used to recruit, schedule, and train them to assist at each clinic.

Results: Approximately 16,000 people were vaccinated in 7 clinics, with 60% of attendees reporting they completed their screening, medical review, and vaccination in 10 minutes or less; 94% reported completing the process in 20 minutes or less. Patient survey results indicate that these H1N1 clinics were viewed very favorably by the public in view of the long lines and protracted waits shown by the media.

Discussion/conclusions: Informatics tools are effective in planning and implementing mass vaccination clinics and have a profound effect on successful delivery. An open-source version of the web-based registration system can be downloaded for free use by public health agencies.