Planning a Successful Mass-Vaccination Call System
In the State of Maryland, and to different degrees all over the country, thousands of Americans have had extreme difficulty “just getting someone on the phone to talk to” when trying to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
The month is February of 2021, just three months after the initial Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines started distribution. According to the Maryland Department of Health, the first phase consisted of essential emergency and medical staff and soon thereafter we reached our current phases: the rest of the population most vulnerable to the disease (Maryland Department of Health, n.d.). As the vaccine distribution has now begun to solidify, mass-vaccination centers are on the rise for those people in the initial and subsequent COVID vaccination “phases”. These large centers with capacity initially designed to hold thousands of people at a football stadium, or for parking at an amusement park are seemingly perfect for distributing thousands of vaccines. One of the main problems now is not necessarily with the capacity of these locations to vaccinate people at scale, but to just get the right people appointments in the right order. And by this I mean: the vaccination appointment call systems.
As of February 15, a call center was setup to “assist eligible residents with making appointments for state-run mass vaccination sites” (Frost, 2021). Here is the experience the author had in getting his 74 year-old father-in-law a vaccine appointment. First, find and call the Six flags mass-vaccination telephone number provided on the internet. Receive a 38 second ploy on why getting the vaccine is important to beat the virus. (Thank you, that is of course why I’m calling.) Press a sequence of numbers to get put in a phone queue to talk to a person for the appointment. Right at the end press “1” to go through text instead… only to find out that the person texting back can’t schedule an appointment. Finally go through the entire sequence of numbers again to get in a telephone queue to talk to a person. Wait a total of 1.5 hours waiting for a person before the call is dropped. Go through the sequence a third time before reaching a person (another hour later) who then says there are no more appointments slots. Repeat this process the next day at 7am.
One with a background in Systems Engineering might be thinking how this problem could be solved, or at least improved. When setting up a generic call system, a number of decisions need to be made: the call center goal, type, and budget among others (Baer, 2020). First, lets assume the customer is the MD State government that has allocated a portion of money which more than covers the costs of implementation of a call system. For this project, let’s also assume that an efficient and effective call system falls within the organizational strategic plan because this system is the “doorway” by which people schedule vaccine appointments. Assume we are now in the project planning stage (International Council on Systems Engineering, 2015). Let’s also tailor this project so that we expand upon the most relevant inputs. The first questions we need answered are: what are the relevant requirements for the call system, the operators of the system (call center operators and those calling to schedule the vaccine), and what are the integration requirements to fit the call system in with the existing vaccine distribution system?
Let’s start with the call system itself: Take the population of Maryland and divide amongst the “COVID phase” populations using existing census data. Then assume that at any given day, the a certain percentage of those people are going to be calling the mass vaccination center. Create requirements for purchasing standard call center equipment to match that capacity. Estimate the time that will be required for each caller to schedule an appointment. With that information, estimate the required amount of people that will be needed to be stationed at the call system receiving telephones. Finally, increase this time assuming call center operators will need to record special accommodations or factors that some callers will need (weight factors, medication factors, assistance, etc).
From a human resources planning perspective, the call system will need a large amount of people that are trained to use existing electronic systems to schedule appointments. We’ll assume that this system was previously developed from other traditional vaccine appointment systems. Because we are in a pandemic, and many businesses in certain industries no longer have work, the hiring of personnel that are call center trained may come directly from those failed businesses. A team of engineers that create integrate and network the call system with a relatively large capacity may be hired from an existing pool of people in a similar way. Personnel from the department of health that have the knowledge of how to accommodate special patient needs should be hired for consulting.
Call system continuous improvement should be planned from the start in order to “course correct” for inevitable problems. In the author’s experience with scheduling a vaccine, the following problems arose. Problem #1: because there is no way to verify that people will “lie” about their phase category, just assume that many will. This way when the call queue prioritizes “phase 1” callers, many people are “lying to get in the queue faster, the capacity already handles it. Problem #2: One of the main phase requirements is that people are prioritized based on their occupation, heath, and age status. Those that are older are at a technology knowledge disadvantage, and therefore cannot as easily leverage the internet to help find out exactly when the call center opens up for vaccine distribution. “People over the ages of 65 and 75 are prioritized for early waves of vaccination and are most at risk from COVID-19 — but they’re also often uncomfortable and unfamiliar with technology.” (Wetsman, 2021). This problem has just recently been alleviated somewhat by the Facebook group “Maryland Vaccine Hunters” which is a group of people dedicated to providing real-time information to those looking to leverage technology to get their older family members vaccine appointments. Problem #3: dropped calls on the phone queue. This problem could have a number of root causes, including, but not limited to losing phone service (not the fault of the call system), or the phone queue system not being able to handle caller capacity. The second cause could be alleviated by (among other solutions) allowing for seamless capacity equipment additions and call center personnel to the call system.
In all, the mass-vaccination centers have done what they can with a minimal amount of time to setup systems that enable our state populations to be immunized to this disease. Although there is a general feeling of frustration with scheduling appointments for the vaccine, a Systems Engineering perspective would undoubtedly benefit the current and future call systems that serve as the doorway for scheduling vaccine appointments.
- Baer, B. (2020, December 17). How to start a call center. The Library. https://www.zendesk.com/blog/successful-call-center/
- Frost, M. (2021, February 15). MD testing call center for state-run mass vaccination sites to help with appointments. Fox 45 News. https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/md-testing-call-center-for-state-run-mass-vaccination-sites-to-help-with-appointments
- International Council on Systems Engineering. (2015). Systems engineering handbook: A guide for system life cycle processes and activities, Fourth Edition, Wiley.
- Maryland Department of Health (n.d.) CovidLINK. maryland.gov. https://covidlink.maryland.gov/content/vaccine/
- Wetsman, N. (2021, January 12). Older adults struggle to access COVID-19 vaccine appointment websites. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/22227531/covid-vaccine-website-appointments-accessible-seniors
