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Equipping Healthcare Providers with Tools to Facilitate COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
December 17, 2020 By BlueAlly
Three solutions to consider for vaccine storage and distribution
The recent news that COVID-19 vaccine distribution will soon be underway provides a hopeful outlook for healthcare providers and individuals alike. The goal of the U.S. Federal Government’s Operation Warp Speed is to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines beginning in January 2021, so there is a lot of preparation to be done quickly.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a partnership with large chain pharmacies and networks. This program covers approximately 60% of pharmacies throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, further increasing access to the vaccine across the country—particularly in traditionally underserved areas.
A key component to successful administration of doses involves seamless delivery and storage of the vaccine to distribution centers both nationally and globally. It is important to think about three critical challenges to solve when considering vaccine distribution.
Physical security for vaccine storage
24/7 monitoring and security to help ensure the physical integrity of vaccines is crucial. Meraki sensors and cameras aim to provide a secure environment for loss prevention—including quality control monitoring and real-time detection alerts. Specifically, when it comes to storing the vaccine, being able to see how many times a freezer door was accessed is critical. Meraki solutions can also facilitate access control verification to help ensure that only authorized personnel are accessing storage facilities.
Mobile vaccine distribution
With Meraki Cellular Gateways (MG), you can deliver optimal customer and patient experience through a mobile-enabled ready-to-go solution for curbside, drive-through, or in-field vaccine deliveries. Thanks to Meraki’s cloud-first architecture and MG, pinning up mobile networks outside of traditional pharmacies and doctors’ offices—such as a pop-up vaccine distribution site—can happen at any location with cell signal, and across hundreds of sites in minutes, without any changes to infrastructure.
Traffic flow & store safety
Support safe queue management and traffic flow within potentially crowded vaccine distribution areas by monitoring guest movement patterns and line queuing. Our solutions can be used to enable real-time face-mask detection, provide 24/7 indoor/outdoor video surveillance, assist with risk mitigation, and deliver immediate alerting.
As COVID-19 vaccine distribution continues to evolve, it is important to consider the three critical use cases highlighted above.