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Even as vaccine manufacturing ramps up, with President Joe Biden promising enough vaccines for all Americans by May, the chaotic rollout, coupled with hesitation about vaccines, has created an unequal equation of l supply and demand across the country.
Missed vaccine appointments have resulted in the availability of some COVID-19 vaccine doses at the end of the day and in some cases dumping when vaccines expire.
That’s why startups like Dr B, and even public companies like GoodRx (GDRX), are getting into the business of providing the latest information to patients, and even matching patients to vaccines based on eligibility. priority of CDCs and postal codes.
Dr B launched in late January, led by former ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi, and has already amassed 1 million registrations.
The site design is simple, with the vaccination sites telling Dr B how many doses are available and when they expire. Dr B then matches the locations to the patients and notifies eligible applicants via text message.
Dr B does not sell patient information, which is only shared when the vaccine appointment is accepted by the patient, Massoumi said.
The platform helps bypass what is currently a labor-intensive hunt for expired doses – with Americans tracking down pharmacies and other vaccination sites towards the end of the day in hopes of jumping the queue to get vaccinated. In some cases, healthcare professionals have chosen to provide the near-expiring doses to family and friends, often with significant repercussions.
“Patients cancel and don’t show up 20% to 30% of the time. This results in the scramble that is occurring at vaccination sites across the country, and this results in a potentially sub-optimal vaccine allocation, ”Massoumi said, noting that is what spurred his interest in launching the site.
But Massoumi said if his site could help someone get a photo sooner, they shouldn’t be relying on it as their first choice.
“It’s a plan B, it’s a backup option,” Massoumi said.
The site currently offers free services to patients and vaccination sites, and Massoumi said there were no immediate plans to find income.
Asked about his long-term business plan, Massoumi said there will be a need for the site for some time, including globally.
“Right now, we are dealing with the problem of our generation. This is the world war of our generation, and therefore in this war this vaccine is the scarcest resource,” Massoumi said.
“The whole world is not supposed to be vaccinated until 2023, and … the 2,500 mutations that currently exist in the world” could pose a continuing need for vaccines, said Massoumi.
Dr B is led by a group of engineers who left Haven, the now-defunct joint venture between Amazon (AMZN), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) and JPMorgan (JPM). the mix to help provide alerts whenever a new site opens or
GoodRx co-CEO Dough Hirsch recently told Yahoo Finance that he is also building a site, borrowing some of GoodRx’s engineers and dedicating them to the task.
“I’m going to pause all other work that I’m doing. I’m going to focus on figuring out what we can do for this pandemic,” he said.
It’s a huge lift as the company seeks to become a national hub for dating, even after the CDC announced its vaccine research site.
“Today everyone is talking about vaccine research data, which is amazing, and we are one of their launch partners,” Hirsch said, adding that he was also partnering with major pharmacies. retail and vaccination sites.
But some sites do not play ball.
“The challenge, of course, is that the big drugstore chains, and we know them very well, are trying to make sure their servers stay up and that no bad actors creep in,” Hirsch said.
This is why even some of the smaller, independently managed appointment sites may have outdated information or lack appointment information for vaccines.
“But, I understand, drugstore chains are really busy trying to keep these things in place and injecting guns,” Hirsch said, adding that some pharmacies are working on ways for GoodRx to plug in safely.
Beyond large chains, independently run mass vaccination sites can also be managed by a third party for appointments, so chasing those down and logging into their systems in all 50 states and territories is a colossal undertaking.
Hirsch noted that he was in contact with Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to the White House COVID-19 response team, to determine how to help target underprivileged communities as well.
“It was a really eye-opening conversation with Andy… because he continues to challenge us to find ways to reach these underserved communities,” Hirsch said.
Recently, Slavitt announced that the federal government was looking for low-tech options, including phone calls to reach certain communities.
“Our audience is more middle to lower income [area], and I think we’ve done a really good job – we have a history of over 10 years “of being able to reach people with less robust Internet access,” Hirsch said.
This is why another aspect of GoodRx’s efforts is to tackle vaccine reluctance, which will include website information about different vaccines and active sharing of information by text for users who provide numbers. cell phone.
Hirsch noted that while this still leaves some of the population out of the loop, he hopes it includes more people than just people with knowledge of the internet.
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