Electronic Health Record Portal Messages and Interactive Voice Response Calls to Improve Rates of Early Season Influenza Vaccination: Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors
Wijesundara, Jessica G.Ito Fukunaga, Mayuko
Ogarek, Jessica
Barton, Bruce A.
Fisher, Lloyd D.
Preusse, Peggy
Sundaresan, Devi
Garber, Lawrence D.
Mazor, Kathleen M.
Cutrona, Sarah L.
UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of PediatricsDepartment of Medicine
Meyers Primary Care Institute
Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2020-09-25Keywords
electronic health recordsinfluenza vaccination
patient care
patient engagement
Health Communication
Health Information Technology
Health Services Administration
Health Services Research
Influenza Virus Vaccines
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
BACKGROUND: Patient reminders for influenza vaccination, delivered via an electronic health record patient portal and interactive voice response calls, offer an innovative approach to engaging patients and improving patient care. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of portal and interactive voice response outreach in improving rates of influenza vaccination by targeting patients in early September, shortly after vaccinations became available. METHODS: Using electronic health record portal messages and interactive voice response calls promoting influenza vaccination, outreach was conducted in September 2015. Participants included adult patients within a large multispecialty group practice in central Massachusetts. Our main outcome was electronic health record-documented early influenza vaccination during the 2015-2016 influenza season, measured in November 2015. We randomly assigned all active portal users to 1 of 2 groups: (1) receiving a portal message promoting influenza vaccinations, listing upcoming clinics, and offering online scheduling of vaccination appointments (n=19,506) or (2) receiving usual care (n=19,505). We randomly assigned all portal nonusers to 1 of 2 groups: (1) receiving interactive voice response call (n=15,000) or (2) receiving usual care (n=43,596). The intervention also solicited patient self-reports on influenza vaccinations completed outside the clinic. Self-reported influenza vaccination data were uploaded into the electronic health records to increase the accuracy of existing provider-directed electronic health record clinical decision support (vaccination alerts) but were excluded from main analyses. RESULTS: Among portal users, 28.4% (5549/19,506) of those randomized to receive messages and 27.1% (5294/19,505) of the usual care group had influenza vaccinations documented by November 2015 (P=.004). In multivariate analysis of portal users, message recipients were slightly more likely to have documented vaccinations when compared to the usual care group (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02-1.12). Among portal nonusers, 8.4% (1262/15,000) of those randomized to receive calls and 8.2% (3586/43,596) of usual care had documented vaccinations (P=.47), and multivariate analysis showed nonsignificant differences. Over half of portal messages sent were opened (10,112/19,479; 51.9%), and over half of interactive voice response calls placed (7599/14,984; 50.7%) reached their intended target, thus we attained similar levels of exposure to the messaging for both interventions. Among portal message recipients, 25.4% of message openers (2570/10,112) responded to a subsequent question on receipt of influenza vaccination; among interactive voice response recipients, 72.5% of those reached (5513/7599) responded to a similar question. CONCLUSIONS: Portal message outreach to a general primary care population achieved a small but statistically significant improvement in rates of influenza vaccination (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02-1.12). Interactive voice response calls did not significantly improve vaccination rates among portal nonusers (OR 1.03, 95% CI 0.96-1.10). Rates of patient engagement with both modalities were favorable. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02266277; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02266277. Lloyd Fisher, Peggy Preusse, Devi Sundaresan, Lawrence Garber, Kathleen M Mazor, Sarah L Cutrona. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 25.09.2020.Source
Wijesundara JG, Ito Fukunaga M, Ogarek J, Barton B, Fisher L, Preusse P, Sundaresan D, Garber L, Mazor KM, Cutrona SL. Electronic Health Record Portal Messages and Interactive Voice Response Calls to Improve Rates of Early Season Influenza Vaccination: Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Sep 25;22(9):e16373. doi: 10.2196/16373. PMID: 32975529; PMCID: PMC7547389. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.2196/16373Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41577PubMed ID
32975529Related Resources
Rights
Copyright © Jessica G Wijesundara, Mayuko Ito Fukunaga, Jessica Ogarek, Bruce Barton, Lloyd Fisher, Peggy Preusse, Devi Sundaresan, Lawrence Garber, Kathleen M Mazor, Sarah L Cutrona. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 25.09.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2196/16373
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © Jessica G Wijesundara, Mayuko Ito Fukunaga, Jessica Ogarek, Bruce Barton, Lloyd Fisher, Peggy Preusse, Devi Sundaresan, Lawrence Garber, Kathleen M Mazor, Sarah L Cutrona. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 25.09.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
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