Ingredients for a Successful Flu Party
In early October we had a super-successful flu party. What’s a flu party, you might ask? No, it’s not a chance to spread the flu with maximum efficiency. It’s a chance for the whole family to get flu vaccine in a fun, festive setting, and with minimal effort. In this post I’ll highlight the tools we use to pull this party together!
What’s the need?
Everyone 6 months and up needs a flu vaccine every year. Many pediatricians won’t vaccinate adults. Many pharmacies won’t vaccinate infants, and some won’t vaccinate children. Many pharmacies don't immunize kids, the pediatric practices don't immunize adults, and with sometimes different insurance plans, families were going 3+ places trying to get flu vaccines. Plus, many flu clinics have long waits, and the waiting compounds the anticipation which amplifies the dread and anxiety many kids have about shots.
Miki Garrison, a researcher at the regional children’s hospital, shares, “I really wanted to be able to both get our flu shots at the same time — both for convenience and because it’s been helpful for my son to watch me get my shot first.”
So we decided to throw a party!
Recipe for a successful flu party
Staff on board. We have one primary medical assistant (who is also really the practice manager), a resident, and me. We all agreed on one Saturday afternoon to run the party.
Easy online scheduling, to minimize extra demand on front desk staff (see, one primary medical assistant slash practice manager slash front desk staff).
Pre-registration including having all the insurance entered in beforehand.
Defined workflow, including order sets for all the pertinent vaccines.
Vaccines! Our pediatric vaccines come us through the Vaccines for Children program, which is universal in Washington State, with the help of the Washington Vaccine Association. We buy adult vaccines privately through a medical supply company.
Festiveness, including decorations, snacks and music! We got our decorations from Costume and Party (which was an intense place to visit in the month before Halloween).
How do you get people to fill out forms in advance? You text them!
Texting patients? Like a human being? Yes! We text with Spruce. Spruce lets us patients text our office number or communicate securely through the Spruce app. Spruce also runs our phone tree, which allows us to forward certain calls to our cell phones, and auto-respond to patient calls with pertinent text messages. For example, if you call and click 3 to get address and directions, you’ll also immediately get a text with a link to the map and photos of how to get into the parking lot. Each member of our team has the Spruce app on our phone, allowing us to respond to messages easily on the go, while not involving any personal cell numbers.
Scheduling 50 new patients – doesn’t that take a lot of your front desk’s time?
Nope. Patients schedule themselves!
For scheduling we use Nextpatient, which has a very mobile-friendly, easy to use, direct scheduling tool. For the flu party, I made a new 5-minute visit type in AthenaHealth (our EMR), then made a "special event" appointment group in Nextpatient, along with the "flu party" appointment type. That allowed me to be able to distribute a link to the visit type directly, and cap the number of people who would be able to sign up. When the initial 24 slots filled up quickly, I added another 24 slots.
We use Phreesia for pre-arrival digital check-in, which collects demographics information, signatures for consent to treat, consent to bill, and provides our privacy practices information. Phreesia also offers a host of screening tools, which we tie to various appointment types. In this case we used the flu vaccine screener.
People do need to be prompted diligently to actually open the text messages for the pre-arrival check-in. We used Spruce to send out messages to everyone registered for the flu party, explaining the necessity of doing the digital check in in advance, as well as all the logistical details of the party. We use Spruce’s template tool (Saved Messages) and tagging to make that happen.
As the event approached, if the check in wasn't completed, we sent out additional Spruce messages and invited people to send back photos of the insurance card if they weren't able to do it through Phreesia. We managed to get every single person's registration -- and their insurance -- ready before their arrival. Most of the attendees were new to the practice, so getting everyone registered beforehand was crucial.
During
Here was our workflow:
Family arrives. Front desk confirms all their information is set and ready to go, as well as how many kid and how many adult vaccines that family will need. This year we stocked exclusively 0.5 mL flu vaccine, rather than 0.25 mL for the 6-35 month set and 0.5 mL for 36 months and older. This has helped streamline the process in regular clinic and helped tremendously for the flu party. Simplifying product selection also helps reduce errors.
Vaccine is entered into the state immunization registry. This step could have been done later, but we appreciate the opportunity to double check that the child is eligible for vaccine (eg, that enough time has passed from their first dose, if this is a year they need two doses). We love the immunization registry. In a situation like this, where many people are being immunized outside of their primary care medical home, using the registry assures that their primary care has access to the information about their immunization
Family sheet is passed along to the person preparing the vaccines. Family is invited to enjoy snacks or color Shoo the Flu coloring sheets.
Family sheet and vaccines are passed to the person vaccinating, who takes the family back to one of the exam rooms. Exam rooms were all prepared with alcohol wipes, sharps box, bandaids, and vaccine information sheets.
Family is vaccinated! Administration details were noted on the family sheet, and then handed back to the desk to be charted in the EMR.
Family is invited to take a selfie with one of the photo frames, and enjoy more snacks. That’s it!
Miki was pleased with their experience at the party. “Part of why we get flu shots is to protect not just our family but to protect our community as well, [so] I loved the idea of being able to celebrate how this is something we do together as a community. My son and I had been talking about how one of the reasons he needed to get a flu shot was to protect his best friend’s little sister, and her family was there as well, getting the shots along with us.”
If you’re interested in any of these tools,
Spruce is offering 20% off your first month with referral code ELIAS20
Nextpatient is offering to waive their implementation fee for practices with less than 5 locations with mention of my name
