The computer programme, Thalamus, is a data analysis tool which is part of a package of information software provided to general practice by primary health organisation WellSouth.
Not only can the tool analyse records and establish which of a practice’s patients are unvaccinated, it can also make a spatial analysis and identify locations where large numbers of unvaccinated people live.
‘‘Good decision-making requires good information and this tool turns data into information practices can use,’’ WellSouth practice network director Paul Rowe said.
‘‘Helping general practices to more easily identify unvaccinated patients, means they can reach out and answer their questions and support them to get vaccinated.
‘‘Some populations are harder to reach and helping to make the Covid-19 vaccine more accessible to them is the next step in this campaign.’’
Musselburgh Medical Centre operations manager Megan Harrison said Thalamus meant the practice could identify and contact patients who were unvaccinated in a faster, easier way.
‘‘We will also be able to track partially vaccinated people who might need a reminder to get their second one.’’
Musselburgh Medical Centre is a vaccination clinic and its advance bookings for shots of the Pfizer vaccine had been solid, but it had noticed an increase in patients missing the second of their two required jabs, Ms Harrison said.
Whether that was because they had gone elsewhere or simply forgotten, Thalamus could help clear up the mystery she said.
‘‘This tool also makes it easier to pull people in at the last minute if we have no-shows, this list hopefully give us the opportunity to eliminate any waste.’’
About 85% of clinic patients had had at least one shot and 57% were fully vaccinated, and Thalamus meant that missing 15% could be targeted for reminders or for further information about the vaccination programme, Ms Harrison said.
‘‘It’s good to be able to see names and to know which patients we can hopefully encourage to come in and get it or to give them option to come in here and get it.’’
The Southern District Health Board region is matching a national trend for the number of weekly first doses to be falling.
Nationally, a fortnight ago, just over 384,000 New Zealanders got their first jab, and in the South that figure was 8172.
Last week, the national vaccination rate for first doses fell to 331,810 and in the South it dropped to 5024.
Second doses increased in those two weeks, a reflection of the surge of vaccinations carried out when Covid-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown was imposed.
A fortnight ago, a further 12,303 southerners became fully vaccinated, and last week that rose to 13,680.
‘‘In the Southern district, we want to vaccinate at least 90% of the population by Christmas and have capacity to meet demand,’’ vaccine rollout incident controller Hamish Brown said.
‘‘We strongly encourage anyone who has not yet received their vaccine to go and get theirs now so we can all get back to the things we love as soon as possible.’’
