As the world gears up to administer the potential COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna to the wider public, the next big challenge that lies ahead is the safe and equitable distribution of these vaccines. To that end, Microsoft has formed various partnerships with organizations from both the public and private sectors to ensure the reliable delivery of vaccines around the world.
Microsoft"s offerings include end-to-end vaccine management solutions taking care of patient registration, phased scheduling for vaccinations, and reporting dashboards for data analytics and forecasting.
Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) has also developed the Vaccination Registration and Administration Solution (VRAS). The company says:
[VRAS] advances the capabilities of their COVID-19 solution portfolio and enables compliant administration of resident assessment, registration and phased scheduling for vaccine distribution. It enables the tracking and reporting of immunization progress through secure data exchange that utilizes industry standards, such as Health Level Seven (HL7), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and open APIs. Health providers and pharmacies can monitor and report on the effectiveness of specific vaccine batches, and health administrators can easily summarize the achievement of vaccine deployment goals in large population groups.
Some of Microsoft"s partners are using the company"s cloud infrastructure, coupled with HL7, FHIR, and open APIs to directly integrate with existing healthcare records and artificial intelligence capabilities to offer predictive analytics. The complete solution also includes Microsoft Teams for secure communication.
To meet global needs of vaccine distribution, Microsoft has partnered with Accenture and Avanade. Together, these companies are offering vaccine management and distribution solutions to healthcare authorities around the world. EY has also collaborated with Microsoft to build one such end-to-end solution which utilizes Azure, Dynamics 365, Power BI, and Power Platform as its supporting technologies. Similarly, Mazik Global is another organization which has built Mazik Vaccine Flow on Power Apps. This solution allows self-monitoring for the patient, and allows the company to manage its inventory as well.
Microsoft has stated that it will be working with its partners to ensure that its new solutions integrate with existing systems of record where possible to keep costs low and to ensure the safe, equitable, secure, and timely delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to people around the globe.