Zocdoc Introduces Vaccine Scheduler, a Free Service that Helps Hospitals, Health Systems and Public Health Entities Streamline Mass COVID-19 Vaccinations
This new service, offered free-of-charge, will stage and schedule vaccines for frontline healthcare employees and eligible patients
Zocdoc, the country’s leading digital healthcare marketplace, today introduced Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler, a new, free service that helps care organizations stage and schedule their employees’ COVID-19 vaccinations. Leveraging its distinctive healthcare booking technology and 13 years of optimizing appointment inventory to accelerate access to care, Zocdoc developed this new service to help America’s hospitals, health systems and public health entities streamline the logistics surrounding mass vaccination programs. Any large care organization can sign up to use Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler, free-of-charge, whether they are an existing Zocdoc client or not.
Now that approved vaccines are available in limited quantities, care organizations are facing the challenge of quickly figuring out how to manage complex logistics surrounding the most ambitious vaccination program in our country’s history. With high demand and limited supply, they are grappling with how to prioritize and coordinate vaccinations for eligible patients at the appropriate time — first for frontline healthcare workers, and then for eligible patients in their communities.
With Vaccine Scheduler, Zocdoc handles the logistical complexities so these organizations can focus on providing care. Care entities can introduce a screening questionnaire to ensure patients’ eligibility before they can access the scheduling service. Once they are eligible, patients gain access to vaccine scheduling, powered by Zocdoc, where they can select their preferred vaccine appointment site, date, and time, and instantly book their appointment online. On the booking confirmation page, they will be prompted to immediately book their second dose appointment to take place at the appropriate time.
“Since the start of the pandemic, we have been focused on contributing to public health efforts where we are uniquely positioned to help,” said Oliver Kharraz, M.D., Zocdoc founder & CEO. “With Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler, we can support America’s vaccine rollout by doing what we do best — using technology to simplify the healthcare experience — so care organizations can focus on what they do best — taking care of patients. We are proud to be able to offer our technology, free-of-charge, to help streamline and accelerate our country’s vaccination program.”
Mount Sinai, which has been working with Zocdoc to improve its patients’ access to care for nearly a decade, is the first health system in the country to go live with Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler. Zocdoc was able to implement its Vaccine Scheduler for Mount Sinai in under one week, exemplifying how leading care organizations can quickly leverage off-the-shelf solutions to overcome new challenges presented by the pandemic. Mount Sinai implemented Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler on December 20, 2020, and has already scheduled more than 100,000 vaccine appointments through the service — at a rate of 100 bookings per minute — both for its frontline healthcare employees and for eligible patients in Phase 1B of New York State’s vaccine distribution plan.
“As we began to shift our focus toward vaccinations in the ambulatory setting, we started looking for solutions to simplify the scheduling logistics surrounding a program of this complexity, importance, scope, and speed,” said Kelly Cassano, DO, Dean for Clinical Affairs at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Operations at Mount Sinai Health System. “Zocdoc was an obvious choice to support this effort. They bring a user-friendly scheduling solution that is proven and works at scale, plus an ability to implement within a matter of days — not months. Zocdoc’s new Vaccine Scheduler is helping us make this process as seamless and efficient as possible for our frontline workers, and we have begun to deploy this for the general public, for eligible patients.”
In addition to its new Vaccine Scheduler, Zocdoc recently rolled out a personalized vaccine tracking service, which distributes need-to-know information to consumers and helps provide answers to common questions. Over time, this service will become more actionable and help users easily develop a vaccine plan, including finding a nearby vaccination location and facilitating online scheduling.
In April of 2020, Zocdoc launched video visits, ensuring Americans could safely access care from home and helping providers keep their digital doors open for business. One month later, the company launched Zocdoc Video Service: a free, HIPAA-compliant video solution that providers can use to facilitate their telehealth visits.
Virtually overnight, Zocdoc has become one of the country’s largest telehealth platforms. More than 10,000 participating healthcare providers across 100 specialties offer nearly one million available video visit appointments on the platform, with more added each day. For perspective, Zocdoc’s telehealth provider network is on par with or larger than that of Amwell or Teladoc.
If you’d like to learn more about Zocdoc Vaccine Scheduler, or if your organization is interested in implementing this new, free offering, please visit zocdoc.com/vaccine or contact us at vaccines@zocdoc.com.
