Increasing Vaccine Uptake Among Veterans at the Atlanta VA Health Care System

Atlanta VA Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diphtheria; Influenza; Pertussis; Tetanus; Pneumonia

Treatments: Other: Modified clinical reminders

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT03950986

AtlantaVAMC

Details and patient eligibility

About

The Office of Evaluation Sciences is collaborating with Emory University and the Atlanta VA Health Care System to increase adult immunizations uptake among veterans. The intervention targets patients of primary care providers (physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners) through a modification of the existing reminders in the VA electronic health record system. The team will evaluate the intervention using a randomized controlled trial.

Full description

The Office of Evaluation Sciences is collaborating with Emory University and the Atlanta VA Health Care System to increase adult immunizations uptake among veterans. The intervention targets patients of primary care providers (physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners) through a modification of the existing reminders in the VA electronic health record system.

The intervention includes a bundled vaccination reminder for influenza, pneumococcal and TDap vaccines, an immunization dashboard that relays a patient's vaccination status and history, and talking points for providers to use in their dialogues with patients. This intervention was designed to mitigate potential bottlenecks to vaccination, based on conversations and observations with facility clinicians.

The team will evaluate the intervention using a randomized controlled trial.

Enrollment: 67,000 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients must have appointments with active primary care providers (physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners) in the Atlanta VA Health Care System

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

67,000 participants in 2 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Providers assigned to the control group will receive unmodified vaccine reminders (as they already appear in the VA EHR system). Separate reminders will appear for the different vaccines of interest.

Treatment

Experimental group

Description:

Providers in the treatment group will receive modified clinical reminders for the vaccines of interest. Reminders for the different vaccines of interest will be bundled into a single reminder, and other changes made to streamline the design and reduce provider burden. Other changes include an immunization dashboard that relays a patient's vaccination status and talking points for providers to use in their dialogues with patients.

Treatment:

Other: Modified clinical reminders