Cellular Alert System

Social innovation is transforming the way in which a society addresses social issues and produces goods and services. The innovation does not have to be a novel idea either, but it must be made operational and not remain just an idea.

A general social problem which we need to overcome includes increasing vaccination uptake. This source of the issue varies significantly when examining developed and developing nations. Due to this issue the focus will be on developed nations since basic health issues like vaccinations are often overlooked in developed nations.

According to the current literature, in the United states it is suggested that “low-income and minority adolescents are equally or more likely to start the HPV vaccination series than are white and higher-income adolescents, but are less likely to complete all 3 shots” (3). In Ireland, a study highlights “…a large socioeconomic gradient in infant vaccination (CI = -0.1944). This means that to achieve perfect equality approximately 19% of vaccinations would need to be redistributed from the richest half of the income distribution to the poorest half to achieve perfect equality” (2). In most of the developed nations, lower income individuals tend to receive vaccinations infrequently and do not complete the full rounds of immunizations recommended.

The best innovation strategy would be a frontline approach, which refers to new approaches and operations. New strategies will be implemented at the “work level” rather than management level. This is a good approach due to the cheaper cost of implementing a management level approach. Such a strategy that involved innovation in governance requires a bit more money and understanding of legislative frameworks, a weakness of a new group. Frontline innovations like HelloBaby and K-Mix often involve using diagnostic tools and information tools to yield better outputs and outcomes (1), so development of tools might lead to some failures but adjustments can be made along the way before wide distributions.

An effective way to increase the probability of completion needed repeated vaccinations could be the implementation of text or phone notifications that schedule these vaccinations beforehand after a person’s first visit. This will be analogues to how pharmacies send a reminder to patients to pick up their medication. This can be practiced by all vaccination providers.

References

1. Cels, S., Nauta, F., & Jong, J. (2012). Agents of Change: Strategy and Tactics for Social Innovation (Innovative Governance in the 21st Century) (1st ed., p. 22). Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

2. Doherty, E., Walsh, B., & O’Neill, C. (2014). Decomposing socioeconomic inequality in child vaccination: Results from Ireland. Vaccine, 32(27), 3438-3444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.03.084

3. Jeudin, P., Liveright, E., del Carmen, M., & Perkins, R. (2014). Race, Ethnicity, and Income Factors Impacting Human Papillomavirus Vaccination rates. Clinical Therapeutics, 36(1), 24-37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clinthera.2013.11.001