This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the most intelligent robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

 Today in health it, the story is what would vaccine distribution look like if Amazon were running it. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT at channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. Don't forget to check out this week in health It Newsday.

It's out today. Every Monday I grab a peer from the industry. And we break down the news that's going to impact health IT professionals. And today it is Drex to Ford. Hope you will check it out. Alright, now onto today's story. Um, Becker's asked, uh, what Becker's does for these articles. Whenever you see, hey, five CIOs, five CEOs, five chiefs, digital officers do something.

They send out an email to a bunch of CIOs and they ask them, Hey, which one of these questions do you want to answer? And they answer 'em via email, they get 'em back and they put 'em together and it becomes an article. Um. and the question they asked this time around is what it improvements are needed to expedite vaccine, a vaccine rollout.

And, you know, it's, it's, it's a really good list from, uh, five CIOs, uh, some of which we've been on the show before. Uh, and from the article, here's, here's essentially the list. Uh, analytics identify the correct population at the correct time. Scheduling for first and second doses with touchless check-in, uh, outreach for reminders to capture more second doses, automated education in all languages, uh, reporting to government entities.

Uh, those were essentially it. I mean, there was nuance to the, to the answers, but I've, I've tried to pull out the, the main themes from the, uh. From the, uh, answers that were there, uh, and it is a really good list. It, it answers the question around technology. Remember the question for Becker's and, and the question they asked was, what IT improvements are needed to expedite the vaccine distribution.

I like the list, but it, it, it left me wanting a little bit, and this got me to thinking what would this look like if it look like if Amazon was running the vaccine distribution? All right, so here's how it would start. The project would start with a premise that is supported by data science. A short paper would be written and circulated on what success would look like.

A headline would be generated and it would read something like a hundred million people vaccinated in 100 days. Sound familiar? Um. So a hundred million people vaccinated in a hundred days analysis would identify three groups of people, right? People we have information on, people we don't have information on, and people who we can influence, right?

So the people we can influence buy from us. Often they're prime members. We take that information and we layer onto it the CD, C guidelines. Look, you know, CD, C guidelines, who can get the vaccine at what time? And those kind of things. Uh, we look at the locations that we have across the country where we can actually do distribution and we look at vaccine availability.

I. And then we ask ourself, does the math support the plan, uh, in the project headline, right? So the a hundred million peoples vaccinated in 100 days, uh, let's assume Yes, for now. Right now we're gonna, there's enough vaccine and the math sort of supports it. Now we develop action plans. At that point, Amazon would ex, would, uh, expand the circle, marketing and communications operations, retail, supply chain, it, and digital solutions, right?

I split those two things out and I'll, I'll talk about that in a minute. Uh, you probably already see where I'm going with this. Each team would be presented with the premise, the headline, a hundred million people in a hundred days. They would see the math to support it and immediately begin to see the gaps that need to be addressed.

You know, one of the biggest areas is just thinking how they approach this. Marcom would be, um, they would be tasked with reaching 120 million people with a pitch to get the vaccine. All right? So conversion rates are never a hundred percent, and uh, so you're gonna need to reach 120 million to get a hundred million vaccinated.

And while education is nice, marketing and communications from, uh, a, a, a retail firm like Amazon would understand that it's not education that changes people, it's ads, it is targeted ads to people where they live in, in, in informs that they can consume and it moves them to action. Education's nice, but it doesn't move us to action ads.

Move us to action. Click on this call to action. Uh, they get that. And so they have to get this in, in front of 120 million people. One of the things that's distinct about this group is they would know how to get it into the in front of people that they don't necessarily have in their database, that they don't necessarily have as customers.

And they would get it in front of 'em because they know how to get in front of that population. 'cause that's, they've been targeting them for, for well since their founding. Um. You know, retail, the retail group would be tasked with setting up outlets, clinics in stores, uh, and parking lots. Uh, you know, one of the reasons I chose Amazon for this, uh, premise is because they are light on retail locations.

So actually, this is kind of an unrealistic, but I'd like. The way Amazon approaches problems. But the, the better partner, the better premise for this would be Walmart. They have the reach, they have the location. So, uh, you know, from a retail standpoint, uh, the Walmart team would be eons ahead of, say an Amazon approach.

But from a a data analytics standpoint, uh, you know, they're probably on par with one another. But Amazon appears to, uh, uh, be a little better at. Uh, I don't know, getting people into their digital outlets, I guess at this point, uh, which is how we're probably gonna try to reach a majority of these people.

Operations would determine how we allocate, uh, the medical staff, the resources, the equipment to maximize the throughput of those, uh, seeking the vaccine in those locations. Uh, supply chain would do what supply chain does, period. The no slowdowns or stopes because the stuff is not there. The right amount of stuff, where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

Uh, it would be tasked with, uh, tracking, integration, scaling, and reporting. See how all those things are sort of passive, and that's what left me wanting in the list. It's kind of passive. Um, you know, we, we would be tasked with tracking, you know, how, where are we gonna track it, where are we gonna put the information, uh, how are we gonna report on the information?

How are we gonna integrate with other systems and share it with the state and share it with the, uh, with, with the federal. . Organizations, how are we gonna provide proof of vaccine at a later date? Uh, all that stuff is just part of integration and then scaling, right? Once we have the solution that's sort of going and we need to take it to all the locations, that's, that's, that's what it does.

This is, I. This, this is in our wheelhouse. So we're, we're really good at this. Digital is different. So digital will be tasked with digitizing the workflow. They would look at this from one end to the other and say, do we need an app or no app? Do we need, um, you know, do we need text-based solution? Do we need a web-based solution?

Uh, what does it look like? We're gonna digitize this thing. Um, how do we do scheduling effectively? How do we, you know, what is the workflow for that? Now, scaling that scheduling thing, I would throw that on it. But the digital team, . Would figure out how to do scheduling effectively. Fewest number of clicks, the most, uh, the most throughput, the most amount of people that are actually showing up to their appointments, uh, reminders.

And, uh, you know, they would bring in, it wouldn't just be the digital aspects of this by the way, they would bring in, uh, people who understand ui ux, people who understand, uh, psychology and how people think and, and how, how, what, what gets them to . Action, uh, the best, uh, you know, directions to locations, those kinds of, that they would digitize the whole, uh, workflow.

Uh, you know, some health systems have done this kind of exercise. Clearly Atrium has done it, uh, to peruse their social media postings. You will see a coordinated and targeted campaign as opposed to, uh, if you build it, they will come kind of approach, uh, from the movie Field of Dreams. Now many are playing that, that Field of Dreams approach.

You know, they're, they're essentially sitting back and saying, Hey, we, we put this stuff in place. And, and of course they will come, and that may work right now when you have short supply of the vaccine and lots of willing customers. Uh, but that equilibrium will swing to plenty of vaccine and a short supply of willing customers at some point, probably in the not too distant future, to be honest with you.

And it's gonna happen by age group. You're gonna get all the people you can in this 65 or over group, uh, and then you're still gonna be left with, I don't know, 25 to 30% of those people who didn't come in. All right, and then we're gonna move on to the next group. We're gonna move on to the whatever, 55 and over group, and we're gonna start vaccinating them and we're gonna get to, I don't know, 65% of them and 35% didn't come in.

This is, by the way, if we get to those numbers, we're really effective. At this point. So at some point there's gonna be a group that is not coming in. You know, the so what on this is don't miss the opportunity, uh, CIOs and health system practitioners, you have a chance to take your health system into the future.

Put together a campaign, not a fill the gaps strategy. We, you know, we need these five things. We built these five things, Hey, our job's done. You know, a campaign is an offensive push towards an objective, set a goal, engage the team and, and make progress and measure your effectiveness towards that goal. I.

Uh, you know, one is passive. We built it and they didn't come and one is active. My So what is be the leader your community needs? Rally the troops. Put together a campaign. Alright, that's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Apple, Google will Overcast. That's what I listened to it on. Spotify, Stitcher, it's everywhere. Uh, we want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health IT leaders, VMware, hillrom, and Starbridge Advisors. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.