The AGS Older Adults Vaccine Initiative: Findings From Seven Participating Health Systems

In 2021, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) launched the Older Adults Vaccine Initiative (AGS Older Adults Vaccine Initiative) with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under a 5-year financial assistance award to the Council of Medical Specialty Societies called Specialty Societies Advancing Adult Immunization (SSAAI). As the lead organization for the Older Adults Vaccine Initiative, AGS set an overall goal of increasing vaccination rates in older adults across seven health systems, focusing on influenza and COVID-19 vaccination. The Council of Medical Specialty Societies along with the participating societies identified several challenges to vaccination, including data collection, vaccine hesitancy and fatigue, and integration into clinical workflows. This paper presents the outcome of a modest improvement in influenza and COVID-19 vaccination rates within the context of an overall decrease in national vaccination rates and also describes how health systems: (1) implemented multiple strategies to increase vaccination rates; (2) tailored strategies to the needs of their system; and (3) layered in overlapping interventions strategies and interventions. The AGS Older Adults Vaccine Initiative demonstrates that a coordinated system-level approach, such as those implemented by the participating health systems, is important to increase vaccination rates in older adults and provide a foundation for increasing vaccination rates in the future. These approaches included interventions that address structure and process, health care workforce, and patient-level barriers, thus ensuring their sustainability beyond the AGS Older Adults Vaccine Initiative.