Banking on tech backup, CDC launches nationwide VaccineFinder tool

Federal health officials launched on Wednesday a tool that allows Americans to search for approved COVID-19 vaccine providers around the country. With the VaccineFinder website, users can enter an address or ZIP code, select a search area, and see a list of providers with contact information, eligibility criteria, and when available, a link to a vaccine scheduler. Users will also be able to see whether the providers have doses available. Initially, the site will only include locations in four states—Alaska, Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee—and providers listed in the federal pharmacy program. The site has been around for more than a decade, developed by a team from Boston Children’s Hospital after the H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009. The public, searchable map of vaccine providers–which is supported by a $12.7 million 5-year grant from CDC–has expanded over time to include a full range of vaccines. As SARS-CoV-2 began to circulate in the United States, the Boston Children’s team began to prepare for an eventual COVID-19 vaccine and started working with health care navigation company Castlight Health in October. The team has developed a way for national pharmacies to report all of their vaccine data for every location at once, instead of individually. Now, 14 of the 21 pharmacies participating in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program report their supply at all locations directly to VaccineFinder. Castlight created the VaccineFinder onboarding system to be as simple as possible, allowing providers to either manually input vaccine inventory or upload a spreadsheet with their daily data. The company also built the platform’s back end to be more secure than previous versions of VaccineFinder. All of the data that comes from CDC and providers is stored on encrypted disks in servers that are not directly accessible from the internet.