Print

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant morbidity and mortality across the world. Effective vaccines are now available but underutilized. In July 2021, Ascension Health implemented a mandate requiring all employees to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine by November 12th. In August 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases in the US increased rapidly, specifically in states with lower vaccination rates, many of which are served by Ascension Health facilities. In this study, we will evaluate a rapidly deployed health system initiative to use text messaging to nudge Ascension employees who have not yet been vaccinated to commit to a date and receive vaccination.

Condition

Eligibility

Eligible Ages
Over 18 Years
Eligible Genders
All
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Inclusion Criteria

  • Ascension Associate Employee

Exclusion Criteria

  • Prior vaccination for COVID-19 - Exemption from COVID-19 vaccination

Study Design

Phase
N/A
Study Type
Interventional
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention Model
Parallel Assignment
Primary Purpose
Health Services Research
Masking
Double (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)

Arm Groups

ArmDescriptionAssigned Intervention
No Intervention
Usual care 		The control arm will receive usual health system messaging about the importance and deadlines for receiving COVID-19 vaccination.
Experimental
Text message 		The intervention arm will receive a text message stating that the vaccine is reserved for them on a specific date. They will have the ability to reschedule to a different day, opt-out of this text messaging intervention, or if previously vaccinated they can upload documentation to the Ascension website.
  • Behavioral: Text message
    The intervention arm will receive a text message stating that the vaccine is reserved for them on a specific date. They will have the ability to reschedule to a different day, opt-out of this text messaging intervention, or if previously vaccinated they can upload documentation to the Ascension website.

Recruiting Locations

More Details

NCT ID
NCT05037201
Status
Completed
Sponsor
Mitesh Patel

Detailed Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant morbidity and mortality across the world. Effective vaccines are now available but underutilized. In July 2021, Ascension Health implemented a mandate requiring all employees to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine by November 12th. In August 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases in the US increased rapidly, specifically in states with lower vaccination rates, many of which are served by Ascension Health facilities. Nudges are subtle changes to the way information is framed or choices are offered that can have a significant impact on behavior. Status quo bias is a preference for the current state which is often used as a reference point when making decisions. Changes from the reference point are often faced with high inertia and this prevents changes in behavior. Default options are the setting of the baseline reference point and are often taken as an implicit recommendation. In prior work, changing default options has led to significant changes in health-related behaviors. For example, changing prescription default settings in the EHR from opt-in to opt-out for generic prescriptions increased the rate of generic prescriptions from 75% to 98% across Penn Medicine (Patel et al. Annals of IM. 2014; Patel et al. JGIM 2018). Framing program participation as opt-out has led to a 22% increase in enrollment in a COVID-19 surveillance testing program (Oakes et al. NEJM Catalyst 2021) and triple enrollment in remote monitoring programs for medication adherence (Mehta et al. JAMA Cardiology. 2018) and diabetes management (Aysola et al. AJHP 2016)

Notice

Study information shown on this site is derived from ClinicalTrials.gov (a public registry operated by the National Institutes of Health). The listing of studies provided is not certain to be all studies for which you might be eligible. Furthermore, study eligibility requirements can be difficult to understand and may change over time, so it is wise to speak with your medical care provider and individual research study teams when making decisions related to participation.