The Lowell Community Health Center https://lchealth.org,is using technology to help multilingual patients access COVID-19 vaccines. On any given day, up to 60 different languages can be heard at the Health Center located in Lowell Massachusetts.
The initial rollout is focused on reaching patients who speak one of the health center’s four most spoken languages to include English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Khmer via SMS text and email. More languages will come online soon.
With about 40% of their 31,000 clients speaking in a primary language other than English, the Health Center launched a new COVID-19 vaccine registration system powered by intelligent automation, with the focus on assuring language access.
Lowell, is the first community health center to partner with Notable https://notablehealth.com a digital health company that provides intelligent automation platforms to healthcare organizations. Notable uses technology to train bots or digital assistants to perform tasks in the EHR just like a human would, such as logging a note, submitting an order, or sending a bill to a patient.
For COVID-19 vaccine distribution, Notable’s bots scan the EHR for unvaccinated patients who meet CDC and state eligibility recommendations. For eligible patients, Notable initiates a digital pre-screening, collects informed consents, and schedules an appointment in the patient’s preferred language.
After rolling out the technology for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, the health center will soon use Notable to automate workflows for a variety of other health services to include automated patient outreach, appointment scheduling and reminders, check-in, and registration.