Protecting at risk populations against COVID-19 through a targeted recall activity

About the practice

• Birkdale Medical is a healthcare provider offering a range of medical services like general health check-ups, specialized treatments, and preventive care.

• Birkdale Medical practice serves a diverse patient population, including many young families, older adults, aged care residents, and First Nations people.

What inspired the practice to complete this QI activity?

Birkdale Medical identified the need for improving their COVID-19 vaccination rates for their older population.

The practice principal, Dr Michael Pitt said ‘’Protecting our most vulnerable patients is so important’’. Dr Pitt went on to say ‘’we need to take an active role in making sure our patients who are eligible for a vaccination, receive it. Recall campaigns are an important tool to support this’’.

The highest at risk population for COVID-19 are older people. In 2025, 62% of Queenslanders who were hospitalised for COVID-19 were aged 65 years and over*. Despite the high risk and recommendations from the Department of Health, Disability and Aging, only 13.4% of Queenslanders aged 75 years and over received a COVID-19 vaccination in the past 6 months**.

Brisbane South PHN collaborated with Healthily to deliver a GoShare SMS recall activity focused on increasing the number of COVID-19 vaccinations given to patients aged 75 years and over in practices in the Brisbane south region.

The activity was available to practices with MedicalDirector or Best Practice clinical software and included:

• A 15-minute phone call to support the use of the GoShare app and guide through the steps of the activity. 

• Support to identify eligible patients using a Structured Query Language (SQL) search in the practices clinical software.

• Free SMS credits. 

• Information and education on the risks associated with COVID-19 and benefits of the vaccine included in SMS’s to patients.

  *Source: Queensland Acute Respiratory Infection Surveillance Report - 1 January - 21 December 2025

  **Source: COVID-19 vaccination – vaccination data – 09 January 2026

The challenge

• Finding time in general practice can be challenging. Jasmine said that they like to do recalls for patients who are due or overdue for vaccinations and aim to do them periodically, however, sometimes other matters take higher priority.

• The support that Brisbane South PHN provides is so valuable and enables us to implement these important activities. They come out and provide education, quality improvement coaching and digital health support.

• Pairing the physical support from Brisbane South PHN with the GoShare COVID-19 recall campaign made this so easy.

What we did

After Jasmine expressed interest in the activity, Healthily made contact to book in the 15-minute phone call and to offer step-by-step instructions to identify the eligible patients. Jasmine said ‘’essentially, the campaign was very easy to set up and establish. The team at Healthily were great and helped set up the whole campaign’’. A quality improvement coordinator from Brisbane South PHN offered support. 

Some of the additional initiatives that the practice implemented to support the activity were:

• using the TV in the waiting room to promote COVID-19 vaccinations.

• opportunistic conversations with patients when they attend the practice for other reasons.

• set up a ‘vaccine clinic’ outside of regular hours to allow for flexible options for patients.

• regular team meetings to review vaccine stock and allocate sufficient time for nurses to see patients. Jasmine said, ‘’we checked in as a team weekly to evaluate patient response vs. capacity of the nurses and the vaccine clinic which worked well to ensure we could meet the demand’’. 

Jasmine summarised that ‘’checking in as a team regularly helped with keeping the topic front of centre and maintaining practitioner engagement. Practitioners proactively discussed vaccines with patients which reinforced the messaging’’.

Results and impact

• A total of 416 eligible patients were identified. Recall SMS’s were sent to 387 of the identified eligible patients.  

• By reviewing vaccination data from the practice’s clinical software for the 30 days prior to the activity, 15 patients had received a COVID-19 vaccine.

• Following the 30-day activity period,  30.2% of patients who received the SMS responded and 117 patients received a COVID-19 vaccine. As shown in the table below, this represents an increase of 102 vaccinations. This is a significant improvement supporting better patient health outcomes.

Source: Healthily COVID-19 vaccine SMS campaign activity log

Jasmine noted that the results achieved through this campaign were significantly higher than those from their usual independently run reminder campaigns.

What will the practice do to ensure this becomes business as usual 

• The practice has confirmed that they will continue to do the GoShare campaigns when they become available. 

• Jasmine advised that using the TV in the waiting room to promote current priorities and initiatives was very effective and sparked patient initiated conversations with practitioners regarding vaccinations. Jasmine said ‘’ we will continue to use the TV in the waiting room in future for all promotions and campaigns’’. 

• Jasmine acknowledged that the support provided by Brisbane South PHN was very useful. Jasmine said ‘’The General Practice Quality Improvement and Digital Health teams are very helpful. They are always able to assist with useful and practical answers/solutions to our questions’’.

What can other practices do to participate?

• Jasmine mentioned that the best piece of advice she can impart to any other practice is ‘’get to know your practice. Once you know what the priorities are and what’s happening (i.e. outbreaks, patient interest in specific areas etc) your job will be easier as you will know where to invest time and effort for promotions and campaigns as the patient population will be more receptive’’. Jasmine went on to say ‘’This will also help with practitioner participation as it will also be relevant to them’’. 

• If you are interested in completing the COVID-19 vaccination recall program at your general practice, please click on the following link to register your interest: What we offer | Brisbane South PHN 

• The Winter Wellness report in Primary Sense is another great way to identify patients who are eligible or overdue for COVID-19 vaccinations.  

If you are interested in receiving support from one of our quality improvement coordinators, please contact us at [email protected] for more information. 

A self-paced activity is available on the Brisbane South PHN website for practices to complete a short activity based on improving pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations for patients with COPD:

Improving pneumococcal and influenza vaccination rates for patients with COPD | Brisbane South PHN