Vendor Categories

There appear to be three types of vendors that are building additional functionality to support COVID vaccinations. They are:

EMRs

• Many EMRs have been building out additional functionality to help support COVID vaccination efforts across the country.

• An upside of using your EMR is that they often already integrate with your IIS and insurance billing system, so you don’t need to worry about setting up additional connections.

• We highly recommend considering your EMR’s new feature and integration offerings, if applicable, as this may save time.

Specialized tools for particular vaccination focus area(s)

• There are many tools that specialize in scheduling management or registration developed pre-COVID that are now pivoting these services to support COVID testing and vaccinations.

• An upside of using specialized tools is that much of their offerings have already been vetted by many customers in similar scenarios.

• The downside of using one of these tools is that quality and experience varies wildly across these smaller specialized vendors, so make sure the vendor you’re considering has a good reputation and is already capable of supporting your most critical needs.

• Examples of tools in this space include Solv for patient registration and scheduling, and QLess for scheduling management.

End-to-end “big company” tools

• There are several big players that have built offerings to support COVID; they tend to offer end-to-end functionality for supporting vaccination administration.

• An upside of using one of these end-to-end tools is that they could be an all-in-one solution for your needs. They also tend to have well-staffed support teams.

• A downside of these tools is that they may not have domain expertise and experience in the same way as a specialized vendor, so, ironically, they may not be as vetted as some of the smaller specialized players for COVID tooling. Additionally, they may be the best-suited for budget-constrained scenarios.

• Examples of tools in this space include Microsoft’s VRAS, Salesforce’s Work.com, VAMS by Deloitte, and Qualtric.