Flu season is fast approaching, and with vaccination rates remaining below national targets, clinics continue to play an important role in helping patients get their flu shots. Among those who didn’t get their flu shots in the 2024-2025 season, Canada’s latest vaccination coverage survey found that common reasons for not getting vaccinated included people not feeling at risk, and simply not getting around to it.

Ocean can help clinics close that gap by making it easier to reach patients, manage high-volume schedules, and share important information throughout the patient journey.

What’s new for 2026: Advanced Clinic Booking

Last year, we introduced Advanced Clinic Booking in early access. It’s now available to all clinics, giving teams a simpler way to manage high-volume services like flu-shot clinics.

Instead of asking patients to choose a provider first, Advanced Clinic Booking flips the order by allowing them to begin with the appointment type, like “flu shot.” They can then select from the list of eligible providers providing the service or simply choose the first available appointment.

By grouping multiple schedules into one booking experience, clinics can distribute appointments more evenly across their team. Patients get a simpler way to find availability, while staff spend less time balancing schedules and manually moving bookings.

Invite individual patients to book

Sometimes a public booking link isn’t the right fit. You may want to recommend the flu shot (or any other vaccine) to a particular patient or give them access to a specific appointment type without opening the schedule more broadly.

With One-Time Booking Links, our latest Advanced Clinic Booking feature, providers can invite an individual patient to schedule their flu shot through a secure, single-use link. The clinic controls the appointment type and booking window, while the patient can choose a time that works for them.

This creates a useful follow-up workflow after a provider discussion or for patients who may benefit from more personalized outreach.

Advanced Clinic Booking in action

Kindercare launched Advanced Clinic Booking for the 2025 flu season and saw appointments fill up almost immediately. Nick from Kindercare described it as their “best year yet,” reporting fewer patient emails and fewer appointments that staff had to manually move to accommodate demand.

“[We’re] very happy with it. This year generated the fewest amounts of emails and reduced how many patients we had to manually move to accommodate more bookings.”

Sunnybrook Academic Family Health Team experienced similar results. After sending a mass message with their booking link, nearly every available appointment was booked within two days.

Melissa from Sunnybrook told our team that it was “working perfectly and patients have had 0 complaints.” Following the successful rollout, Sunnybrook began planning to extend the workflow to its teaching clinics.

Expanding Your Outreach

Increase flu shot appointments

One of the simplest ways to increase vaccination uptake is by reaching patients where they already are, on their phones and in their inboxes. With Ocean Patient Messages and Reminders, clinics can send targeted invitations directly to patients, encouraging them to book their flu shot. Once those bookings are made, the automated reminders help reduce no-shows, saving your staff from the time-consuming work of follow-up calls.

For high-risk patient groups, this form is especially valuable for screening and tracking as part of program monitoring. 

Ocean Tip:

Add a short footer in each of your templates that links straight to your online booking calendar, making it effortless for patients to schedule an appointment.

Automate Admin with Patient Reminders

Once patients are booked for their flu shot, the next job is making sure they arrive at their appointments! Automating appointment reminders is an effective way to reduce no-show rates and alleviate the manual burden on clinic staff. By sending timely email or SMS reminders, you can ensure patients don’t forget their scheduled visit, all without follow-up calls or manual outreach.

If you already have Ocean Online Booking, our Patient Reminders solution is included in your licence. To add a new reminder rule for flu shot visits, take a look at this guide.

Reinforcing the Message In-Clinic

Public health messaging doesn’t stop at outreach. For many patients, the waiting room or check-in kiosk provides another valuable touchpoint. This year, clinics can use Ocean’s check-in kiosks to display prompts that remind patients to ask about the flu vaccine or schedule a follow-up appointment on the spot. Even something as simple as a QR code poster in the waiting room can encourage patients to scan and book their shot while it’s still top of mind. These small reminders help normalize vaccination and keep the topic visible throughout the patient journey.

For useful clinic resources including a free QR code generator, visit our Brand Assets resource hub.

Looking for more tips?

Catch up on our Flu Season Webinar from last year, where we walked through step-by-step setup tips and best practices for running smooth vaccination clinics.

The webinar is available free in Ocean Academy – just register for an account (separate from your Ocean User Account) to access the full recording!

Offering Online Booking is one of the simplest ways to manage patient flow without overloading administrative staff with manual bookings. With Ocean’s powerful rules and restrictions, clinics can easily tailor their flu-shot bookings to meet their exact needs. Key features and considerations include:

• Create custom flu-shot appointment types with specific parameters (e.g. 5-min time-slot)
• Integrate with existing and/or purpose-built EMR schedules
• Automate chart-creation for new patients (learn more)

You can follow this guide for quick and easy instructions to get started: