System launches to automate management of COVID-19 NHS and social care staff vaccination programmes
Software designed to enable NHS Trusts to automate the management of COVID-19 vaccination programmes, for NHS and social care staff, is being launched this week by healthcare IT specialist, Inform Health. The software, which recently went live at a London teaching hospital, will deliver substantial reductions in administrative resource for Trusts, while facilitating quick and convenient participation in the biggest immunisation programme in history for appropriate staff.
Responding rapidly to customer needs, Inform Health reconfigured its health information system, utilised by NHS sexual health services across the UK, to create the vaccination programme software. The software has been designed to function with minimal manual administration. As such, once staff details have been uploaded and divided into priority cohorts, just a single manual email is required to request that recipients update their information. All other steps in the process are triggered by a combination of patient self-managed actions, confirmation by the HCP the patient is suitable for a 2nd dose and system automation.
The process begins when staff members go online to update their contact information on the new web-based system. Once complete, Inform Health’s vaccination software will invite staff members in one or many cohorts to book their first appointment via automated SMS notifications. Staff members can then login to the system, view clinic availability and book their first vaccination appointment. When staff members attend their first appointment and receive their first dose, the clinical staff record the national vaccination data set and confirm the patient is suitable for their next dose. On confirmation, the system will invite the patient by SMS to book their second appointment within the designated timeframe decided by the different vaccine manufacturers and current guidance.
Should staff members fail to book their second appointment, the system will send repeated automated reminders prior to the start of the second vaccination window, before alerting administrative personnel of the patient’s potential diversion from the immunisation pathway.
News of the launch follows the rapid reconfiguration of Inform Health’s sexual health systems earlier this year, which are being used by multiple NHS customers, including Barts Health NHS Trust, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, to underpin streamlined and effective COVID-19 staff antigen and antibody testing programmes, SIREN and ESCAPE research programmes and even face mask FIT training.
Capable of managing multiple patient cohorts and multiple manufacturers’ vaccines simultaneously, the software represents a lifeline for NHS Trusts, already working under immense pressure during the pandemic’s second wave.
Sue Bunn, co-founder of Inform Health, comments: “With tens of thousands of NHS staff off sick or self-isolating because of COVID-19, the MRHA’s approval of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and, most recently, the Moderna vaccine is welcome news for Trusts that understandably want to provide vital protection to staff and ensure they are able to cope with an increasing number of patients requiring care.
“As a committed technology partner to multiple NHS Trusts and with a ten-year track record of delivering innovative technology solutions to sexual health, HIV and SARC services, we felt duty bound to support our customers in any way we could. At the onset of the pandemic, we worked around the clock to rapidly develop systems that would better manage COVID-19 staff testing programmes – systems that have saved NUH NHS Trust 180,000 staff hours between April and December alone. And now we’re proud to offer our NHS customers an off the shelf system that will automate the complex administration processes and deliver substantial savings in time and resource for staff immunisation programmes too.”
