ABSTRACT

Introduction: Equitable COVID-19 vaccine access is essential to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. In many instances, COVID-19 vaccination notification and scheduling occurred through online patient portals, for which socially vulnerable populations have limited access. Our objective was to reduce disparities in COVID-19 vaccine access for the Black and socially vulnerable populations unintentionally excluded by our health system’s patient portal-driven vaccine outreach through a telephone outreach initiative.

Methods: From February 1, 2021, through April 27, 2021, telephone outreach was directed towards patients aged 65 and older without patient portal access at a large urban academic general internal medicine clinic. Univariate and multivariate analyses between those who did and did not receive telephone outreach were completed to assess the odds of vaccination, accounting for outreach status, sex, age, race/ethnicity, payor status, social vulnerability index, and Elixhauser Comorbidity count.

Results: A total of 1466 patients aged 65 and older without active patient portals were eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Of these patients, 664 received outreach calls; 382 (57.5%) of them got vaccinated compared to 802 patients who did not receive outreach calls, of which 486 (60.6%) got vaccinated (P = 0.2341). Patients who received outreach calls versus those who did not were more likely to be female, younger, non-Hispanic Black, from high social vulnerability index census tracts, and have higher Elixhauser Comorbidity counts. Logistical analysis revealed an odds ratio (OR) with a nonstatistically significant trend favoring higher vaccination likelihood in the no outreach cohort with univariate analysis with no changes when adjustment was made for age, sex, race/ethnicity, payor, social vulnerability index, and Elixhauser Comorbidity count (univariate analysis: OR 0.88 [95% CI, 0.71-1.09]; model 1: OR 0.89 [95% CI, 0.72 – 1.10]; model 2 – 0.89 (0.72 – 1.11); model 3: OR 0.87 (95% CI, 0.70 -1.09)].

Conclusions: While our telephone outreach initiative was not successful in increasing vaccination rates, lessons learned can help clinicians and health systems as they work to improve health equity. Achieving health equity requires a multifaceted approach engaging not only health systems but also public health and community systems to directly address the pervasive effects of structural racism perpetuating health inequities.