NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of COUNTIES AWARDS SUBMISSION FOR COVID-19 MOBILE OPERATIONS OUTREACH VEHICLE (MOOV) IN BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

To increase vaccination rates in areas that were under-vaccinated, Baltimore County’s data team mapped out “hot spots” in the County. These hot spots analyzed down to the street level, and “buildings of opportunity,” such as churches, shopping malls, community and recreation centers and local schools identified as potential sites. The majority of these locations were not suitable for a larger, mass-vax site, however they could accommodate a small mobile strike team. The County created a strike team and designed a custom truck dubbed “The MOOV”, or Mobile Operations Outreach Vehicle. While mobile units, per se, are not novel concepts in the field of public health, the mechanism by which the Mobile Teams deployed allowed for greater numbers to be vaccinated in a shorter timeframe. Mobile teams that operate out of recreational vehicles or buses can typically only see a small number of patients at any given time. Due to the time required for proper registration and screening, and the mandatory observational period following vaccination, an operation performed inside a vehicle would limit vaccination number significantly. Instead, the strike teams were modeled after common practices used in the entertainment industry, such as live music. All necessary materials, supplies, equipment and even a majority of the furniture, were rapidly loaded into the site rolling “work-box” style road cases that allowed for an expeditiously coordinated mobilization and strike. A small strike-team of staff quickly established a vaccination site in the hot spots and vaccinated up to 300 people over three hours with a skeletal crew dubbed “Noah’s Ark,” --two of each role: two vaccinators, two registrars, two vaccine fillers, two observation assistants, two ushers and the two logisticians who handled mobilization. (A physician was added to help patients who had medical questions or other reasons for their hesitancy) The unit’s folding canopy allowed the unit to set up operations in a parking lot or sidewalk when a building could not provide sufficient space inside. It is anticipated that this unit will be utilized to provide vaccines, testing and other public health services to hard-to-reach demographics well beyond the COVID-19 response.