COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Finders

U.S. Digital Response (USDR) has collaborated with organizations at the federal, state, and local levels to help develop vaccine appointment finders that aggregate and streamline disparate appointment systems to help people access vaccines. Our team can immediately help you implement a vaccine appointment finder that works for your unique jurisdiction, residents, and providers.

See the Implementation Guide Read our learnings

Partner Example

New Jersey’s Vaccine Appointment Finder

New Jersey originally had a list of statewide vaccine providers, but no way of getting up-to-date availability information from them. USDR closely collaborated with New Jersey and other partners to help the State develop a solution that aggregates appointment availability information from the state’s major vaccine providers, using APIs and web scraping.

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New Jersey’s call center personnel have been using their vaccine appointment finder tool daily to book appointments for their inbound residents. An even more user-friendly, accessible version of this appointment finder is now available to the general public, to secure appointments on their own.

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Screenshot of New Jersey's vaccine finder tool

What's inside

Create a practical tool to address your residents’ needs

People want access to COVID-19 vaccines, plain and simple. Varying eligibility requirements, appointment processes, and disparate vaccination locations can make it confusing and frustrating for your residents to identify how and where to actually get a shot. Launching a centralized vaccine appointment finder that combines appointment availability from your community’s major vaccine providers on one platform can significantly help solve that problem. The first step toward launching this tool is considering the “user journey” and creating a streamlined flow of appointment availability into one a practical, useful platform. USDR’s team can help tailor your vaccine appointment finder to meet your communities’ unique needs.

Journey map for residents seeking vaccines

Follow a simple “building blocks” framework to develop your tool

As you configure your vaccine appointment finders, you must consider two important points: which providers will be included, and how you’ll collect your information. USDR’s team will help identify technical solutions to aggregate the relevant data, saving your team, residents, and providers time and energy.

Expand your vaccine appointment finder offerings over time

Vaccine appointment finder tools are best used in your call centers, with your community outreach partners, and for the general public. We highly recommend a “build-as-you-go” approach starting off; millions of eligible residents need help securing appointments today. APIs and web scraping methods with major providers (e.g. CVS and hospital systems using Epic) often offer the largest coverage of appointment availability. USDR will set your team up to continue making improvements and add more provider types and data extraction methods on an ongoing basis.

Diagram illustrating the sources of vaccine appointments, and methods for extracting information from them

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