Technology issues experienced by older populations responding to COVID-19 vaccine text outreach messages

Kaelyn Gwynne; Raj Ratwani; Ram Dixit

doi:10.1093/jamiaopen/ooad066

Technology issues experienced by older populations responding to COVID-19 vaccine text outreach messages

JAMIA Open. 2023 Aug 10;6(3):ooad066. doi: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooad066. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Authors

Kaelyn Gwynne¹, Raj Ratwani^{1

2}, Ram Dixit²

Affiliations

¹ Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
² MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, Hyattsville, Maryland, USA.

Abstract

Text messages used by healthcare organizations to communicate with patients have known limitations for certain populations, especially older adults. This study analyzed text message interactions with over 17 000 patients aged 65 and older during the initial phase of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. We coded the responses of 4247 patients who responded to this outreach to understand issues they experienced with the text message system. Our analysis highlighted areas for technology improvement and the need for more robust strategies to effectively reach older populations.

Keywords: COVID-19; aged; community outreach; text messaging; vaccine.

Publication types

Case Reports