Vaccination Appointment Booking

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Suite of systems built to enable COVID-19 vaccinations in Singapore

Background

In late December 2020, Singapore commenced its nation-wide vaccination rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine. Amidst vaccine supply uncertainty, there was a need to match demand and supply of vaccines with precision for different population segments, and across more than 80 vaccination centres island-wide. As this was an exercise of unprecedented scale for Singapore, there was a need to quickly build a suite of systems that could support the operation end-to-end.

There were a few challenges where technology could help to support a smooth and effective rollout of the programme:

The need to phase in demand by mobilising the population based on an order of priority, given availability of the vaccine
A seamless user experience that would encourage users of all age groups to book, including seniors and other population segments that might be less digitally savvy
Given the high volume anticipated, any solution would need to withstand exceptionally high traffic
Public trust was paramount - any solution deployed would need to instill public confidence, and assure people that they would receive vaccines within a reasonable time frame
Reduction of no-show rates, by providing timely appointment reminders
Accurate and consistent record-keeping of who had been vaccinated, with what brand of the vaccine, and when it was effective
Need for real-time operational awareness for decision support amidst uncertainty

Solution

Vaccine.gov.sg - A landing site that provides up-to-date information on the Covid-19 vaccination programme, and directs people to pre-register.
Pre-registration system - An online FormSG form where everyone registers once to be notified via SMS when their turn arrives to schedule their vaccination appointments. This helps to titrate in demand based on different priority groups and vaccine availability. Every individual’s pre-registration is authenticated and only pre-registrations from Singapore residents can be successfully submitted.
National Appointment System (NAS) - For patients whose turn to book appointments have come, they are sent a unique booking link to book appointments for both doses of the vaccine. The National Appointment System:
- Authenticates the patient
- Conducts a demographic and medical triage to ascertain that the patient is medically fit to be administered the vaccine, and collects informed consent
- Directs the patient to secure two doses, 28 to 56 days apart, at their preferred vaccination site and preferred time slots
- Shows which clinics have a shorter waiting time, to optimise matching of demand and supply
- Sends a confirmation SMS with appointment details once both appointments are secured
- Sends appointment reminders via SMS to reduce no-show rates
- Allows patients to cancel or reschedule their appointments
Proxy booking system - To ensure that even the less digitally savvy segments of the population have access to vaccines easily, we built a proxy booking system used by volunteers from People’s Association and the Silver Generation Office to book appointments for seniors at Community Centres, or via house visits.
Clinic administration system - A clinic administration system is deployed across all 80 vaccination centres, polyclinics, and public health preparedness clinics (PHPCs) for tracking of daily appointments, patient rescheduling, and registration of walk-in patients. This enables vaccination centres to plan ahead for logistics and resupply, and helps patients without prior appointments to secure appointment slots for their second dose at point of a walk-in appointment (currently available for seniors).
Vaccination records - Once the vaccination has been completed, records are validated to ensure that data is consistent, complete, and securely stored. Business logic is applied on these records to derive an accurate vaccination status. Downstream systems such as TraceTogether and HealthHub are therefore able to pull vaccination statuses for display on their frontends.
Command-and-Control (C2) system - For a complex mission with many moving pieces like a national vaccination rollout, decisions need to be guided by timely data. To enable data analysts and policymakers to monitor take-up across population segments and vaccination sites, we built a C2 system to provide an accurate and real-time read of the ground situation, and to better optimise demand and supply for vaccines.

Impact

Accelerated national rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations by facilitating the booking of 7 million appointments:
- 80% of Singaporeans aged 12-39 have booked
- 73% of eligible persons aged 40-44 have booked
- 78% of eligible persons aged 45 to 59 have booked
- 76% of eligible seniors aged 60 and above have booked
Administered around 5.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. A total of 2.1 million people have received their second dose and completed the full vaccination regimen.

Team

Product Support Volunteers Team

Esther Wang | Russell Chan | Samuel Koh | Sarah Espaldon