During the timeframe between January 9 and March 20, 2022, nursing homes participating in an education campaign led by Alliant Health Solutions (Alliant), a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization, demonstrated a 15% or greater increase in resident and/or staff COVID-19 boosters. This increase occurred in the period between when the nursing homes were referred to Alliant for assistance and the last week they reported booster rates to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) database, compared to the median increase for the same period among nursing homes in their respective states.   

The campaign called, “Give the BOOST a Shot” engaged nearly 1,000 nursing homes in Alliant’s seven-state region. Facilities received invitations to weekly targeted educational events and office hour sessions and a weekly newsletter. They also had access to a dedicated webpage with downloadable resources and educational materials developed using the principles of behavioral science. Participating nursing homes also were encouraged to reach out directly to Alliant’s epidemiology, quality improvement, and infection control experts.  

Leighann Sauls, Alliant’s program director and Dr. Swati Guar, medical director personally reached out to leaders at nursing homes and corporate offices to inform them of the campaign, describe how it would help their facilities increase vaccination rates and encourage them to participate. To address staff time constraints, Dr. Guar engaged clinical leadership in seven- to 10-minute sessions focused on booster guidance and vaccine hesitancy and engaged leaders in a Q&A session. In addition, she offered to conduct personalized Give the BOOST a Shot events.  

The Alliant team categorized information from one-on-one outreach along with questions from the field into specific topics that became the focus of educational and office hours sessions. These topics included infection control, second booster guidance and submitting NHSN data. Nursing homes with high vaccination rates served as panelists and shared their best practices.  Alliant also engaged nursing homes through its newsletter, the “Give the BOOST a Shot Bulletin.” Each week more than 5,000 nursing home staff receive the latest COVID-19 booster guidance from CMS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Resources and recordings from past Give the BOOST a Shot events and best practices from peer nursing homes intended to foster learning and engagement are also included. 

To further increase awareness and engagement in the campaign, Alliant created a robust social media campaign. In addition to regularly posting content about educational events and office hours sessions, Alliant shares evidence-based COVID-19 vaccination information. Eye-catching graphics and the hashtags #GiveTheBoostAShot and #VaxToTheMax accompany campaign-related posts. Alliant’s top-performing LinkedIn post had 162 impressions, three clicks and an 8.64% engagement rate. One of Alliant’s top-performing Twitter posts had 491 impressions, 11 engagements and 40 link clicks. Sauls says these combined efforts helped raise awareness and interest in the Give the BOOST a Shot campaign and promote the importance of fully vaccinating nursing home residents against COVID-19. 

This material was prepared by The Bizzell Group (Bizzell), the Data Validation and Administrative (DVA) contractor, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. 12SOW/Bizzell/DVA-1129-07/18/2023