ServiceNow helps solve challenges to quickly vaccinate people against COVID-19

ServiceNow has announced new workflow solutions to help organizations get people vaccinated quickly. These solutions address vaccine management challenges at scale by removing logistical barriers to speed up the immunization process. The State of North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and NHS Scotland are among the more than 100 organizations currently working with ServiceNow on their vaccine management efforts.

“Quickly developing effective vaccines was the world’s first challenge, and the scientific achievements have been outstanding,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO of ServiceNow. “The world must now rise to the second challenge, getting people vaccinated quickly.

“Distributing, administering and monitoring vaccinations is the greatest workflow challenge of our time,” McDermott said. “ServiceNow is proud to help solve the complex logistics, coordination and effective delivery to people that is required. We are harnessing the power of our Now Platform to provide government agencies and others worldwide the scale, speed and flexibility needed. ServiceNow’s Vaccine Administration Management solves the last-mile challenges of keeping people healthy and safe.”

Despite heroic scientific achievements in developing the COVID-19 vaccine, organizations are trapped in the “last mile” of vaccine management as they lack the processes and infrastructure needed to vaccinate people quickly. The characteristics of the vaccine – limited supply, precise storage conditions, and two-part injection requirements – make its urgent distribution a complex workflow problem.

ServiceNow’s Vaccine Administration Management solution supports President Biden’s goal to deliver 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, with immediate actions under way by the Biden-Harris administration to “convert vaccines into vaccinations.” For example, in addition to already helping the State of North Carolina, ServiceNow also is working with NHS Scotland, which has developed custom workflow solutions on the Now Platform to support their goal of vaccinating 5.5 million citizens within three months.

Introducing new vaccine management solutions

Disconnected, manual, legacy systems are among the biggest challenges to getting the world vaccinated. To address these problems, organizations are using ServiceNow’s Now Platform as their vaccine management command center. Available today, ServiceNow’s new Vaccine Administration Management solution gives organizations out-of-the box capabilities that allow people to access critical vaccine information, schedule appointments, and receive appointment notifications from vaccine providers.

Vaccine Administration Management is built on ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) and delivers a modern, self-service experience across desktop and mobile devices. The solution connects patient communication with vaccine inventory systems so organizations can easily notify patients when more vaccines are available, schedule appointments, and send reminders.

The State of North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) is relying on ServiceNow’s technology as the foundation for its “command center” for healthcare providers, clinicians administering the vaccine, and supporting NCDHHS staff to access the latest information related to state vaccine requirements and to get their vaccine-related questions answered.

“To help get our more than 10 million North Carolinians vaccinated quickly and efficiently, the State of North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is using the ServiceNow platform to power our COVID Vaccine Management System (CVMS) Help Desk Portal,” said Thomas Parrish, Acting Secretary and State Chief Information Officer for the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. “Leveraging ServiceNow, we also were able to assist NCDHHS in developing a workflow on the CVMS Help Desk Portal that digitizes the process of requesting and securing state approval to transfer vaccines to different locations. What was previously a manual, time-intensive process can now be completed through the portal with a few clicks – ultimately accelerating the immunization process.”

Accelerating the last mile of vaccine management

As millions of people seek vaccinations, organizations are reliant on legacy systems and processes that are not optimized to support massive spikes in usage. Meanwhile, organizations do not have established processes in place to offer self-service capabilities and proactively schedule appointments that follow the requirements for effectively administering the vaccine.

Using ServiceNow as their vaccine management command center, organizations can connect all of their data and make work flow across their siloed legacy systems, including scheduling, prioritization, and communication. ServiceNow’s digital workflows connect an organizations’ existing technology infrastructure and provide a dashboard to orchestrate the critical elements of the vaccine management process including:

· Distributing vaccines: Track vaccine delivery, manage inventory, and monitor stock levels to support population prioritization.

· Administering vaccines: Schedule vaccine administrators and support staff, track personal protective equipment (PPE), monitor no-shows, and capture feedback. People can communicate with their vaccine provider on the channel of their choice.

· Monitoring vaccine outcomes: Monitor recipient safety, report adverse events, and support safe return to workplace efforts and ongoing public health monitoring.

“What the world needs now is help overcoming unprecedented logistical challenges to get billions of people vaccinated as quickly as possible, which is the goal of this solution,” said Stephen Elliot, Program Vice President, Management Software and DevOps at IDC. “Organizations urgently need workflows that connect siloed legacy systems to speed the immunization process and get the world back to normal.”

Workflowing a healthier future

ServiceNow’s vaccine management solutions are a part of the company’s broader innovation effort to support customers and organizations as they respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. ServiceNow’s Emergency Response Apps help organizations navigate COVID-19 crisis management and have been downloaded by more than 1,800 customers worldwide. ServiceNow’s Safe Workplace suite helps organizations gauge workforce and workplace readiness as they look to safely return employees to the workplace in the new normal. The Safe Workplace suite of apps continue to be innovated bi-monthly; to date, more than 900 organizations globally have downloaded the apps with close to 10,000 unique installations.

The company will introduce additional solutions to support organizations’ last mile vaccination efforts in the coming weeks.