“It’s been a race against time,” Professor Darelle van Greunen from the Centre for Community Technologies said of the urgent assignment to develop an easy to use web-based booking solution that would allow health workers (at the moment) and the public (during further phases of the roll-out) in the Nelson Mandela Metro to access it from any device, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs in order to book a date and time for their vaccination.

The booking system was launched this week to facilitate the roll-out of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to health workers at Livingstone Hospital, but it will also be used when the vaccine becomes available to the public.

The next batch of Johnson & Johnson vaccines is due in South Africa over the weekend as the vaccination teams exceeded their first goal of vaccinating 40,000 health workers in a week by Wednesday, with 41,809 having received the jab.

“This solution is a big improvement from the current manual disintegrated system,” Van Greunen added.

“The booking solution is the key reference for accurately coordinating vaccine distribution from the facility where the vaccines are stored in vaccine fridges at the necessary temperature. Because of the sensitivity of the vaccines, the number of vaccines transported to Livingstone Hospital needs to be precise. The scheduling functionality of the system allows the coordinating team to accurately predict the number of doses for delivery and therefore avoids wastage. We cannot have 1,000 doses delivered to Livingstone today if only 580 people are being vaccinated, because then 420 doses are wasted.

The team at Livingstone Hospital is in constant communication with the facility where the vaccines are stored.

“We had precious little time to develop the booking solution. Fortunately we are well placed to do this as one of our areas of specialisation is the digital healthcare solution space and we regularly design different ICT solutions that support healthcare and service delivery.

“To ensure we meet the requirements of the booking system, we did a vaccination site visit to familiarise ourselves with the client’s vaccination journey. The solution was then refined over the weekend, shared with the metro’s coordination team for input and given to one of our developers to code it and ready it for deployment. In a few months’ time the system will handle millions of people, which it is designed to do – it is running on a secure database back-end and a web-based front-end with a very easy to use interface.

“Presently, the booking system, which has to be intuitive and very easy for members of the public to use, is being piloted with healthcare staff from Livingstone. If someone doesn’t know how to use it, we will set up a help line where their details can be entered in the booking system.” 

This is how the booking app looks. (Photo: Supplied)

She explained that a vaccination recipient has to first register on the national Department of Health’s EVDS system.

“The EVDS system captures your name, ID and medical history. The EVDS is encrypted data that belongs to the national Department of Health and complies with all the legislative requirements.

“Once you are registered, you receive a text message from the EVDS that you have been registered to be vaccinated. Depending on your status, such as whether you are a frontline worker or over 60 or if you have comorbidities, the Department of Health will categorise you and when it is your time to be vaccinated, a voucher number will be sent to you via text message. At this time, you are required to use the booking system to schedule your vaccination date, time and facility.

This week, during a debate on the government’s vaccine roll-out plan, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said that there had been 500,000 registrations on the EVDS system.

Van Greunen explained the process further: “At the vaccine facility, you enter a dedicated area, confirm that you are on the list and then there are specific points where they do a number of checks, such as confirming your medical history, take your blood pressure and check other vitals. You give consent to be vaccinated, go to the vaccine booth, get your once-off jab and wait 15 minutes to make sure there aren’t any adverse effects; if none you leave.

“What has been really good throughout the Covid-19 pandemic is the level of partnership we have developed with the district-, provincial and national departments of health, and the office of the premier. Digital technology has taken centre stage in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, and the urgent need for solutions, the reliance on, and role of, digital technology has become more crucial than ever before,” Van Greunen said. DM/MC

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