Maryland’s COVID-19 vaccine call center, created in February of this year, has now helped scheduled more than 460,000 vaccination appointments and made more than 11 million outreach calls to Marylanders.
In a press release, Gov. Larry Hogan touted the success of the Go VAXX Call Center’s efforts with both phone calls and text outreach.
“Our call center – one of the first of its kind in the country – has played a critical role in Maryland’s leading vaccination rates,” Gov. Hogan said in the release. “In addition to helping Marylanders seven days a week with scheduling vaccination appointments, the call center is conducting aggressive outreach to those who are unvaccinated and newly eligible for booster shots.”
The call center was created to help streamline the state’s efforts to connect residents with vaccine appointments and information. In a press release, the state said on its first day the call center received over 80,000 calls. Nearly 75,000 more calls followed on the second day. Within a few weeks, the call center was also placing nearly 5,000 outbound calls a day to assist those who had the most urgent needs with appointment pre-registration.
“We saw how effective the call center was in the first few days of operation,” Secretary Dennis R. Schrader of the Maryland Department of Health said. “It became clear that we could utilize the call center as a resource for a variety of activities designed to put vaccines in the arms of every Marylander, regardless of their circumstance.”
Since its creation, the call center has focused its efforts on advancing a number of the state’s vaccine outreach initiatives, including helping reach seniors, homebound individuals, college students, Hispanic residents, and employers. To date, call center staff have placed tens of thousands of referrals to vaccine programs including rideshare, homebound support, and mobile clinics.
The call center’s efforts are ongoing, as it is now focused on delivering COVID-19 test results, informing Marylanders when they are eligible for booster shots, helping the state’s managed-care organizations get Medicaid recipients vaccinated, and providing real-time information on COVID-19-related resources.
