Utilizing health information technology to improve vaccine communication and coverage

Vaccination coverage is still below the Healthy People 2010 and 2020 goals. Technology use in the US is widespread by patients and providers including text message, email, internet, social media and electronic health records. Health information technology (IT) interventions can facilitate the rapid or real-time identification of children in need of vaccination and provide the foundation for vaccine-oriented parental communication or clinical alerts in a flexible and tailored manner. There has been a small but burgeoning field of work integrating IT into vaccination interventions including reminder/recall using non-traditional methods, clinical decision support for providers in the electronic health record, use of technology to affect work-flow and the use of social media. The aim of this review is to introduce and present current data regarding the effectiveness of a range of technology tools to promote vaccination, describe gaps in the literature and offer insights into future directions for research and intervention.