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“The motto is: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.” The Chancellor’s call was two weeks ago, but the daily number of vaccinations has not changed much since then. The previous high was 340,000 vaccinations per day, the average since the beginning of March has been around 200,000. Now there is the threat of further crashes due to the AstraZeneca hack. In addition, some federal states want to close their vaccination centers during Easter.
For comparison: the United States recently inoculated 3.5 million doses in one day. Sure: Germany still has very few vaccines. But there are already between one and four million cans per week in the cupboards. At the latest, when delivery quantities increase significantly in the coming weeks and general practitioners become part of the campaign, it seems clear: daily capacity must increase, and many times more.
A jump to a million a day is easily doable, says Achim Wallau, a family doctor from Wiesbaden and co-developer of the 4.0 vaccination planner. “The stay at the vaccination center can be shortened to five minutes; so far, it has generally been 45 minutes or more.”
Because both the scheduling of appointments and the data processing of each individual in the place that wants to be vaccinated has been a bottleneck until now and, if desired, information can also be provided. On the other hand, using the vaccination planner, all general practitioners could schedule appointments, record data and inform their patients, regardless of who carried out the vaccination at the end.
Achim Wallau is a family doctor and would like to promote the vaccination campaign in Germany with his software
Source: Achim Wallau practice
Because in the vaccination center, the data comparison is done individually, manually and in several steps. This labor-intensive process can be done ahead of time and consistently. “The problem is that too much time is wasted where it really matters,” says Arash Nawwaby, IT developer and founder of the Heilbronn-based company Navatec, which is behind the Vaccination Planner 4.0 software.
His approach: “Citizens register with the family doctor and, depending on their vaccine selection, receive their appointment at the center – or at the consultation, depending on availability.” In the appointment itself, it only remains to present a ticket with a QR code that contains all the data. This would reduce the old paperwork.
Another time advantage: the program can also provide the interfaces for the planned digital vaccination certificate. “Herd immunity could be achieved in as little as three months,” believes family physician Wallau. So far, however, the software has not been used anywhere, and according to its own information, Navatec has been negotiating with various state governments for months.
Another advantage of the vaccine planner is also its major shortcoming: the database should also function as a logistics platform and become the central vaccine ordering system for general practitioners, also for any necessary follow-up vaccines.
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However, this will only be successful if it is used throughout Germany or at least evenly in individual countries, because the distribution is controlled at the state level. However, there was no longer a uniform system in vaccination centers, many countries opted for local solutions.
Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) made it clear from the start: the federal government is responsible for delivering the vaccines, but the operation of the centers is the responsibility of the federal states. It is different with practices. Responsibility is returning to the federal government, at least on paper. However, there is no uniform system for making appointments and providing information throughout Germany. Many practices want to handle vaccinations over the phone or with appointment tools like Doctolib.
Each practice can order the vaccination doses individually, the amounts are specified by the federal government. When asked, the National Association of Health Insurance Statutory Physicians (KBV) said: “Doctors in private practice know their patients and, based on prioritization, will target those who should have their turn first. Immobile patients will vaccinate them at home. “
Therefore, many practices are based on the “established way.” Vaccination for the flu season illustrates its effectiveness: “Doctors in private practice vaccinate more than 20 million doses in a few weeks.”
However: at the end of April, the total amount of doses for the practices will be “very small”, says the spokesman of KBV. At the moment, it’s a million a week, that’s 20 per practice, just a fifth of what they could at least handle. With these amounts, the question of booking appointments does not arise anyway, according to KBV.
Already three weeks ago, KBV chief Andreas Gassen said in an interview with WELT that 50,000 practices could certainly vaccinate 20 million people per month, provided sufficient supplies are supplied. A primary vaccination could be completed in June and extensive immunization of the adult population in early August, Gassen said.
The extent to which AstraZeneca’s new vaccine recommendations will fail in this prognosis cannot yet be predicted; the current prioritization will likely become obsolete in May or June due to the soon increase in quantities.
However, by then at the latest, many practices are threatened by the rush to get to appointments. So far, Navatec has benefited less from this than Munich-based start-up Jameda. The online platform, which belongs to Hubert Burda Media, is intended to relieve doctors and, above all, staff in practices and thus increase the effectiveness of vaccination.
Because phone lines, which are often busy anyway, will likely be even busier soon, which could lead to longer wait times. “We know how busy doctors are even without corona vaccines,” says Florian Weiß, Managing Director of Jameda, which claims to be the leader in the dating market in the healthcare sector.
Digital processing has several advantages: When you book the first appointment, the appointment for the second vaccination dose is automatically assigned, and the reservation is not tied to the opening hours of the practices.
Even slots that have been released on short notice can be quickly re-closed, so no unused deadlines are exceeded or cans expire. In addition, doctors can upload documents such as the information sheet or information about the procedure in the consultation in the confirmation of the appointment. If that happens, the length of stay can be greatly reduced in practice.
