Tracking recipients of Covid-19 vaccines and verifying immunization status are poised to become increasingly important in the US and globally as vaccines are rolled out.
Photographer: Eric Lee / Bloomberg
Photographer: Eric Lee / Bloomberg
Recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine in Los Angeles County, a major virus hotspot, are offered a digital record that ensures they are given a second chance, which can eventually be used to access concert halls or airline flights.
The offer will be offered from this week through a collaboration with the startup Healthvana. Its primary purpose is to ensure that people receive both doses of the two-step regimens approved in the US, including through follow-up reports for a second appointment.
It also gives recipients a way to verify they’ve been vaccinated, which they can put into an Apple Wallet or a competing Google platform ‘to prove to airlines, to prove to schools, to prove to who needs it’ said Healthvana Chief Executive Officer Ramin Bastani.
Healthvana app with vaccination record.
Founded in late 2014, Los Angeles-based Healthvana operates a software platform that provides test results to patients for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. It began working with the county earlier this year to provide Covid-19 test results to patients.
Those previous relationships with local residents helped the start-up fit the digital vaccine record well, said Claire Jarashow, director of vaccine-preventable disease control at the province’s health ministry.
Los Angeles County broke its record of new Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations last week. It is racing to distribute vaccines “as fast as humanly possible,” Jarashow said.
While the immunizations are kept in records, public health officials there also saw the need to give patients ownership of their own records, Jarashow said. They will be given a paper card stating which vaccine they received and when, but it can easily be lost.
‘We are really concerned. We really want people to come back for that second dose, ”said Jarashow. And “we just don’t have the capacity to make hundreds of medical record requests to find people’s first doses and when they need their second.”
Tracking recipients of Covid-19 vaccines and verifying immunization status are poised to become increasingly important in the US and globally as vaccines are rolled out.
That has one racing between players such as International Business Machines Corp. to provide technological solutions, and to envision a world where vaccination records can be used to provide access to places where people congregate or are nearby. With regard to private health records, these efforts have also raised questions about ethical and privacy issues.
Software platform
Healthvana also offered more capabilities than a platform used to run Covid-19 vaccination clinics called PrepMod. Still, at least initially, the province will integrate, clean and process data from PrepMod and other registries to Healthvana every night.
Jarashow acknowledged issues surrounding a business providing access to resident protected health information, but said they worked through it. Healthvana stores the data on Amazon Web According to Bastani, HIPAA compliant servers are from Services.
“It’s as safe as we can make it,” Jarashow said. “Personally, I would to feel comfortable use, so i hope that’s reassuring. “
Population
The county had at least 38,850 doses of the Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine, just under half of the allotted amount, to health care providers, residents of long-term care facilities and paramedics as of Dec. 22. The digital vaccine record will become increasingly important as immunization pressures spread to a more general population, Jarashow said.
With a population of approximately 10 million, Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the US.
Healthvana is also in talks with concert halls, employers, universities and schools about the application of this technology, “anyone with a large number of people interacting with it,” Bastani said. But he believes such a service is unlikely to become the standard.
“It’s not going to be like a credit card you can use in the US,” he said. “Sometimes you can pay in cash, sometimes you can use your Apple Wallet.”