With growing grievances and frustrations in Massachusetts over what some have found a difficult and confusing vaccine enrollment process, a woman in Arlington has taken on the task of easing.
Olivia Adams, a software developer and mother of two young children, told us that she decided to create her own website after learning from her mother-in-law about how difficult it was to find available vaccinations and sign up. for a meeting using Massachusetts online. portal.
“While the state website has a centralized location, there is a different website for each site and they all work slightly differently,” Adams said. “And there’s no good way to say, ‘OK, what seats are available next week or how many slots are available?’ Do I waste my time calling every CVS around me to see what the hell is going on? “
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The developer, on maternity leave from work at athenahealth, created macovidvaccines.com, where vaccination sites and their available time slots are all on one page.
Adams said she worked during her 2-month-old baby’s sleep and after both of her babies went to bed in the past three weeks. She estimates it took about 40 hours to get the site up and running.
“It was a learning curve,” she said. “I’ve never made my own real website before, it’s so complicated, so it was definitely a great learning experience.”
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Adams admits that the launch of the Massachusetts hotline for vaccines announced Friday by Gov. Charlie Baker is a great step, but he doesn’t think it goes far enough.
“I think so many people want to have a website that they can look at,” she said. “We have the technology. The resources just haven’t been made available yet, so I really hope that this will get some traction and we’ll be able to move somewhere with it.”
At Friday’s call center press conference, I asked Baker if he would consider implementing Adams’ idea on the state’s website.
“Send us her name, we’ll talk to her,” Baker said.
“I think the feedback we get from outsiders is incredibly helpful,” he added. “And if I stayed here, I could go through a long list of adjustments, changes, modifications, reforms and new initiatives that have been launched since it started, which involve feedback from outside.”
Two Massachusetts representatives, Mike Connolly and Jay Livingstone, also took note of Adams’ initiative. A joint letter was sent to Baker on Saturday, asking him to support his work and incorporate the design he created into the state’s official vaccine programming website.
Adams “is the hero of the vaccine we’ve all been waiting for !!” Conmolly said in a tweet, tagging her in the post.
Adams said he would be happy to meet with state officials if they arrive.
“I’m 100% open,” she said. “Let’s get out of this mess as soon as possible.”
Residents and state lawmakers have complained that the Massachusetts vaccination site is difficult to navigate. Adams says the problem goes all the way.
“The federal government kind of pushed the states to work on this and the states kind of told the others … we have our own sites, Fenway, Gillette, so big, that they worked on them you have that centralized place where you can get look, but anywhere else that has vaccines is like, here’s your supply, you know, “she said.” And that’s where the problem lies, this decentralization. It is very difficult for our residents to know where to go. It’s definitely an organizational issue, but we can improve it … So I hope we’re able to get more resources and be able to help wherever I can. “
While she had a lot of fun creating her vaccination registration site, Adams says she’s a little crazy how many people contacted her to tell her that’s exactly what the state wanted to offer them.
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“It’s kind of crazy that after I started advertising, there was such information, and so many people said, ‘That’s what I was looking for, that’s what I need,'” she said. “And the state did not realize this and failed to do so in a more centralized way with resources that I did not work at night during maternity leave.”
Once maternity leave ends soon, Adams said that if she has enough time to continue working on the site, her dream is finally that people can sign up and receive emails when there are several vaccine meetings available in the area.