Pop-up vaccination as a start for integrated care in Brussels

Abstract

In general: Many of Brussels’ inhabitants showed hesitance towards vaccination in 2021. Citizens indicated to preferably receive their vaccine in their own neighbourhood, administered by a health care provider they already knew. They said it would make them feel more confident and give them the opportunity to ask remaining questions (experiences from a pilot project by a local general practitioner (GP) practice). Primary health care providers, however, indicated to have too little resources to vaccinate their patients within their normal practices. Hence and based on our experience in 2021 (where we organised different pop-up vaccinations), we decided to offer different types of support during the flu and COVID-19-automnal vaccination campaign to Dutch speaking GP’s in Brussels. One of these types of support was a local ‘pop-up’ vaccination centre.
 Scope of the project: The aim was to support local health care providers during the flu and COVID-19-vaccination period and to offer a local solution for citizen’s to get their vaccination. This fits within our global aim to facilitate integrated care within Brussels.
 BruZEL initiated the project inspired by the example of one GP practice in Anderlecht. The following local partners, were involved :
 GP’s of 4 practices in Anderlecht, local pharmacists, local nurses, students from the neighbourhood, the local community service, pharmacy.brussels for up-to-date information on flu vaccination,Logo Brussels.
 The event: Patients were invited to come and get a flu and / or a COVID-19 vaccine on 2 Saturdays. We invited patients at risk (> 65 years or > 50 years risk factors) of the 4 GP offices with a personal letter. 
 However, the pop-up vaccination was open for all patients of the 4 GP offices.
 Up to 4 parallel vaccination lines were put in place: local pharmacist delivered vaccines, students guided the patients, nurses administered the vaccines, a GP registered in the EPD and was stand by.
 BruZEL coordinated, contacted and employed all care providers, provided the necessary tools (reservation/registration) and all the material needed. 
 The local authorities provided the facility, the vaccination boxes and facilitated parking places close to the entrance. 
 
 Results: In total 596 patients were vaccinated (166 against flu, 145 against COVID-19 and 285 received both vaccines). 
 Learnings and next steps: The experience of 2021 was confirmed: organising this with local health care providers and local citizens made the difference!
 Firstly, we relieved the workload for primary healthcare providers in the area. Moreover, the participating health care providers had the opportunity to meet each other, work together as a team and spent some ‘extra’ time with their patients. They mentioned at the end of the day to be tired, but boosted with energy. Next to that we saw that patients were more at ease as it wasn’t such a ‘mass production experience’ compared to the large vaccination centres.
 This is a first step to implement integrated care: getting to know each other and working together on local community oriented preventive actions.
 We see an opportunity to broaden the scope of preventive actions: towards e.g. health educational events.