RESOURCE CENTER

Chapter 5: See Trailblazers’ Real-World Results

Health organizations started vaccinating communities quickly using out-of-the-box technology.

Technological capabilities often sound great in theory, but what happens in real life? With a mature, sophisticated system, implementation can be quick and seamless. You can go from idea to results with incredible speed. Explore the experiences of the following four Trailblazers to understand how a top-notch vaccine management system benefits the organization, the community, and the world at large.

See how to stand up services in a blink.

Louisville-Jefferson County, one of the largest metro areas in Kentucky, built LouVax in just four weeks on Salesforce Government Cloud. The vaccine scheduling and management system gives the county’s 617,000 residents an online, contactless way to register to receive a vaccine. The system also gathers information to help the department prioritize distribution. When the COVID-19 vaccine became available, the county opened a drive-thru clinic in eight days. “The pandemic has really highlighted what talented, passionate people can achieve, even in a short time, when they have access to the right resources,” said Dr. SarahBeth Hartlage, Medical Director for the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness.

Start to massively expand your remote reach.

Penn State Health serves a vast swath of Pennsylvania that includes 29 counties and 4 million people. When the pandemic began, it shifted to high levels of remote work and telehealth appointments for its far-flung patients. Penn State Health chose Salesforce for its ability to quickly adapt to its business and workflow. Once Penn State Health could offer its patients the COVID-19 vaccine, it used Health Cloud and Marketing Cloud to enable registration, scheduling, vaccine management, and reporting to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The technology shows up-to-the-minute vaccine inventory and can send personalized messages to eligible patients. “We serve diverse communities across central Pennsylvania, so the fair and equitable distribution of vaccines is very important to us,” said Cletis Earle, SVP and CIO at the organization. “Salesforce’s solutions are flexible enough for us to see the data, plan out what could be improved upon, come up with a new game plan, and implement improvements to our vaccine appointment capabilities within as little as 24 hours.”

Learn how to help teams achieve lofty goals.

Northwell Health, New York’s largest health system, is using Salesforce’s Vaccine Cloud technology across its 23 hospitals and nearly 800 outpatient facilities to help patients access the COVID-19 vaccine. The company had already been using cloud systems to help agents connect with patients and let patients book their own appointments for COVID-19 PCR testing. Then Northwell Health started using Marketing Cloud to communicate with patients through email and text messaging throughout their vaccine experience. The company leveraged Tableau to see vaccine inventory in real time, current call center volumes, appointment bookings, and electronic medical records (EMR) data. “We’ve been on a digital transformation journey for several years,” said David Luft, Assistant Vice President for Software Engineering and Development at Northwell Health. “What the pandemic emphasized is that you have to build and work within tight-knit, cross-functional teams. … We’ve learned that the more we can focus on a single high-priority item, the quicker we can deliver it without compromising quality, security, or scalability.”

See how New York is coming back from the brink.

COVID-19 hit New York City early and hard, and some wondered if the city could ever regain its vitality – it probably couldn’t without widespread vaccine distribution, partly enabled by the city’s Vax4NYC program built on Salesforce Government Cloud. It went live in just three weeks when vaccines became available. New Yorkers start by creating a profile with Experience Cloud. They step through the requirements – answering questions about eligibility, being screened for health issues, adding personal information, and more – before they book the time and location that works best. On the day of their appointment, they receive a notification to fill out screening questions that ensure they can safely receive their dose. The information is captured in the system and contributes to progress reports by ZIP code, demographics, and more. Shield adds an extra layer of security, while MuleSoft’s API capabilities enable email communication. “[It] doesn’t require a huge amount of training to bring someone up to speed, which means someone can start using it on day one,” said Jessica Tisch, Commissioner and Citywide CIO for the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, shortly after its launch. “Seeing this platform in action and seeing vaccinations happen doesn’t just give me hope. It brings me joy. This past weekend, New York was alive again, and I said to myself, ‘It’s working. I am seeing this city come back to life.’”