A conversational artificial intelligence system that contacts older adults by telephone is moving from a pilot project into a standard public health tool in northern Spain, after a first-phase campaign produced a 30 percent increase in vaccination coverage. La Rioja’s regional health department has relaunched its proactive outreach program using LOLA, a clinical Voice AI agent developed by the company Tucuvi.
The renewed effort will once again place automated but adaptive phone calls, this time centered on shingles and pneumococcal vaccines. The system provides information about the vaccines, answers patient questions in real time, and helps schedule appointments at primary care centers. The decision to expand the initiative follows a targeted campaign conducted between August and September 2025.
During that period, LOLA placed 6,347 phone calls to residents born in 1959 and 1960. The calls offered details on recommended vaccines and supported recipients through the decision-making process.
Based on the outcomes, La Rioja’s public health officials determined that the approach could be applied more broadly, leading to the launch of a new vaccination campaign aimed at older adults.
A model for reaching hard-to-reach populations
Adult vaccination campaigns pose persistent challenges for healthcare systems. Reaching thousands of individuals, addressing personal concerns about vaccines, and improving access without increasing the workload of clinical staff are all common hurdles.
La Rioja, one of Spain’s seventeen autonomous communities, faces these challenges in a particularly acute form. It is the least populated autonomous community in the country, organized into 174 municipalities. Many of those are small towns scattered across the Ebro River valley, making direct outreach labor-intensive.
With limited resources, even modest efficiency gains can have a significant impact on preventive care. Clinical Voice AI addresses these obstacles by automating routine interactions.
LOLA’s phone calls are not simple robocalls; they are designed to be conversational and adaptive, able to answer real questions from real people. By handling standard outreach tasks, the system frees clinical teams to dedicate more time to patients who require direct medical attention. Public health officials emphasize that the trend underlying the technology is about efficiency, not replacement.
The goal is to reduce barriers to vaccination while keeping clinicians’ workloads manageable. The region’s small population and geographic layout make it a practical testing ground.
La Rioja is located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula along the Ebro River valley, bordered by the Basque Country, Navarre, Aragon, and Castilla y León. It is a single-province region with its capital in Logroño, and it has no separate provincial government. Historically inhabited by pre-Roman tribes such as the Berones and Vascones, the area later experienced Muslim rule, became part of the Kingdom of Pamplona, and eventually was incorporated into Castile. The modern province of Logroño was created in 1833; the territory was renamed La Rioja in 1980 and gained autonomous status two years later.
The region is internationally known for its wine, which holds Spain’s highest classification, Denominación de Origen Calificada Rioja. The name “Rioja” itself dates to at least 1099 and derives from the Río Oja, though scholars have long debated its exact etymology.
Recognition and next steps
The project’s results have attracted attention beyond La Rioja itself. The Spanish Vaccinology Association awarded the initiative an Honorable Mention in the Public Health Best Practices category. That recognition adds weight to what the region is demonstrating: a small area proving a larger point about how technology can integrate into existing systems without friction.
The 30 percent increase in coverage during the first phase suggests the approach works, and the relaunch signals that health officials see this as a repeatable model, not a one-off experiment. The new campaign will again target older adults, this time focusing on shingles and pneumococcal vaccines.
The system will contact patients by phone, provide information, answer questions in real time, and help schedule appointments at primary care centers. The process is designed to reduce barriers to vaccination without adding strain to clinicians. For a public health system operating with limited resources, that balance is critical.
What remains to be seen is whether other regions will adopt similar AI-driven outreach as a standard tool rather than a pilot program. As healthcare systems across Europe contend with aging populations and stretched workforces, La Rioja’s experiment offers a real-world test of whether artificial intelligence can improve vaccination rates without replacing human care.
The shift is early, but the signal is clear. The assumption that reaching older adults for vaccination requires massive manual effort is being quietly rewritten by a voice on the phone.
