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The waiting lists for vaccines are something of an open secret. Most dose providers collect contact information for people who can arrive at short notice if injections become available at the end of the day. But the lists are generally not advertised.
“When there are these excessive doses, one of four things happens,” says Cyrus Massoumi, founder and former CEO of ZocDoc, the popular website for scheduling doctors’ appointments. “Either they are wasted or they go to someone who is out there – not necessarily the highest priority patient. Or they go to someone who is a friend in the directory of the person administering the vaccine because, out of desperation, they’re just trying to make sure it doesn’t go to waste. Finally, it can be directed to people who are capable or have the resources to stand in line. “
This is why Massoumi has taken it upon himself to streamline the watch process through a new website called Dr B. The online database provides a centralized place for individuals to sign up for remaining vaccines, regardless of their status. place of residence or their priority group. Participating vaccination centers then indicate when they have doses and how many are available so that Dr B can automatically text people in the area based on their eligibility criteria.
READ MORE: Skipping the Line: How Some NYers Get Vaccinated Without an Appointment
The Massoumi team started to develop the project in January. It is now open to individuals and is slowly building its list of service providers. Even without widespread advertising, he has a waiting list of around 200 vaccination sites across the country who want to join. Last week, Dr B did a small test at a center in Queens that gives between 500 and 1,000 injections per day. (Dr B shared the site name with WNYC / Gothamist but said it could not be named publicly.)
“Anything that can help connect those eligible for doses is a wonderful thing,” said a spokesperson for the institution that operates the site.
At the Queens site in question, 10 to 12% of people who have dates do not show up on a given day, the spokesperson said. He said it was because someone often made ‘date shopping’ meaning they made one reservation and then found another earlier or more convenient elsewhere. Since Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be stored at cold temperatures and used within a certain period of time after being thawed, no-shows and cancellations can make it difficult to find willing takers.
Even though New York state policy states that vaccination sites are supposed to maintain waiting lists of eligible people for vaccines, WNYC / Gothamist has found that sites sometimes bend the rules. Bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan says neglecting eligibility isn’t ideal, but it’s okay to do so if there is no other option and a dose could be wasted.
“At this point it’s really safe to make a waiting list of eligible people and a waiting list of anyone who can show up quickly and just run the list, clearly stating that you are trying first. to attract eligible people, ”said Caplan, who founded the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU School of Medicine.
READ MORE: Almost three months later, we have a clear picture of the safety of COVID-19 vaccines
Dr B has another proposal to ensure fairness and equity with waiting lists. When people sign up, they enter personal information that the website can cross with local eligibility criteria. When a dose becomes available, Dr B alerts people in the area by priority group – meaning that a senior in phase 1a will always be notified first and so on throughout eligibility. At the Queens center where Dr B performed his field test last week, Massoumi says the first two people who came through the website were healthcare workers who weren’t employed by hospitals, so they might not have had such easy access to the vaccine. like some of their colleagues.
The third was an older woman who spoke Spanish and was having trouble signing up for a vaccine appointment when she first became eligible. Dr. B is currently available in English and Spanish. “Presumably, in his case, the existing systems were a bit more difficult to navigate, and Dr. B took him less than a minute to register,” Massoumi said.
He adds that while the issues of eligibility and additional doses are not as urgent in the United States as vaccine supply is rapidly increasing, he believes Dr B could be of use in other countries as ‘they launch the deployment of vaccines. Massoumi says his team – which includes operations experts who were removed from President Biden’s transition team at the end of it – are working to increase their capacity as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, the Queens site where Dr B was piloted and other vaccination centers across the city continue to rely on regular waiting lists, imperfect as they are.
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