Encouraging Flu Vaccination Among High-Risk Patients Identified by a Machine-Learning Model of Flu Complication Risk

Background

On average, 8% of the US population gets sick from flu each flu season (Tokars et al. 2018). Since 2010, the annual disease burden of influenza has included 9-45 million illnesses, 140,000-810,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000-61,000 deaths (CDC 2020). The CDC recommends the flu vaccination to everyone aged 6+ months, with rare exception; almost anyone can benefit from the vaccine, which can reduce illnesses, missed work, hospitalizations, and death (CDC 2019a). Flu vaccination will be especially important for high-risk patients during the COVID-19 pandemic so that flu cases are reduced and resources conserved.

While most recover from influenza without treatment, the elderly, those with comorbidities, and other high-risk individuals can experience complications such as pneumonia, other respiratory illness, and death. Geisinger, a large health system in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has partnered with Medial EarlySign (Medial; www.earlysign.com) to develop a machine learning (ML) algorithm to identify patients at risk for serious (moderate to severe) flu-associated complications on the basis of their existing electronic health record (EHR) data. Geisinger will deploy this system during the 2020-21 flu season and contact the identified patients with special messages (in addition to standard efforts made by the health system every flu season) to encourage vaccination. Flu vaccination will be especially important for high-risk patients during the COVID-19 pandemic so that flu cases are reduced and resources conserved.

Published results suggest Medial's ML systems identify high-risk patients in other contexts (Goshen et al., 2018; Zack et al., 2019). However, there is little evidence about (a) whether informing patients they are at high risk makes them more likely to receive vaccination; (b) how patients react to being told their risk status is the result of an analysis of their health records; and (c) whether informing patients their risk status has been determined by an "algorithm," by "machine learning," and/or by "artificial intelligence" will increase or decrease their likelihood of getting vaccinated. This study will address these gaps in the literature, which are especially important in light of the anticipated future growth of AI/ML system use throughout healthcare.

Medial's algorithm is an example of how interoperable health information exchange (HIE)-the ability for health information technology to share patient data-can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare. However, patients may not appreciate these benefits or the fact that healthcare has become substantially more integrated and collaborative. A systematic review of patient privacy concerns about HIE found that 15-74% of patients expressed privacy concerns, depending on the study, and concluded that patient perspectives remain poorly understood. A flu outreach message that explicitly references a review of patient medical records might backfire as patients react badly to a sense they have lost control of their health records.