The Commonwealth of Massachusetts: Rapid website development helps the state accelerate public health information and vaccine delivery
About Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS) provides secure and quality digital information, services, and tools to citizens when and where they need them.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About SpringML
SpringML provides a lightweight foundation for building solutions rapidly. With expertise in industry-leading big data and analytics platforms, as well as domain knowledge in various industries, SpringML’s expertise and solutions have helped four other states streamline their vaccination process.
Learn how Google Cloud partnered with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security to centralize, optimize, and prioritize distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
Google Cloud results
- Launched within two weeks of the first meeting
- Went live in under seven days
- More than 400,000 citizens were able to register on the first day
- Up to 700,000 citizens were registered by the fifth day
- Approximately 650,000 people have been vaccinated through the new system
- Managed appointments for more than seven vaccination sites statewide
A new way for government to reach its constituents
When the COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out in early 2021, the state of Massachusetts did not have a centralized system to register, prioritize, and schedule appointments for constituents, so streamlining the process was critical to ensuring that people were inoculated as soon as they became eligible.
The existing decentralized system created anxiety and stress for people trying to secure appointments, which were only released on a weekly basis. The state was also dealing with supply and demand challenges. As an example, early in the vaccine rollout, Massachusetts was only receiving 135,000 weekly doses, but was forced to contend with more than 1 million individuals who were eligible for a vaccination appointment, based on established criteria from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
After seeing the positive experience of Google Cloud partnering on similar initiatives with Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, and the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS) of Massachusetts collaborated with Google Cloud to provide much-needed infrastructure. While other vendors projected a timeline of two to three months from their goal, Google Cloud established a launch rollout of 12 days.
Looking to enhance and improve upon its overall vaccine rollout, the Commonwealth chose Google Cloud, to quickly configure their system and meet the unique needs of Massachusetts.
Unique solutions like App Engine provided a lightweight foundation for building a seamlessly scalable application that could handle spikes in demand, as well as actually reducing latency during heavier traffic.
“We held our first discovery call during the first day or two in March and had the actual sign-up page launched on Friday, March 12… Thanks to the sheer volume of resources that were brought to bear by the Google Cloud team, our users had a smooth experience using an incredibly stable application.”
—Matthew Moran, Assistant Secretary of the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, Commonwealth of MassachusettsBuilding confidence with constituents
Massachusetts created an easy, intuitive user experience for their constituents to make vaccine appointments faster and more reliably. Bringing a partner like Google Cloud, with its range of products and services, to the table added credibility and provided additional confidence to the community in the stability of the system.
“We held our first discovery call during the first day or two in March and had the actual sign-up page launched on Friday, March 12. We saw more than 400,000 constituents register on the first day, and thanks to the sheer range of resources that were brought to bear by the Google Cloud team, our users had a smooth experience using an incredibly stable application,” said Matthew Moran, assistant secretary and chief engagement officer for the Massachusetts EOTSS.
To register, citizens provided login credentials and entered basic information, including date of birth, name, and address—as well as occupation for high-risk environment factors and CDC-suggested eligibility requirements. Collecting this data allowed for highly targeted selections based on risk level for certain vulnerable populations, and provided the ability to account for evolving eligibility factors from the federal government. Firestore was used to power the web-based, public-facing interface for taking in citizen registrations by providing a database alongside App Engine linked through a simple API. Registration data could then be easily loaded into BigQuery to analyze performance, registration uptake, and vaccination eligibility for various citizen cohorts, and then eligible individuals could then be singled out and notified via Cloud Functions.
The solution was able to integrate multiple provider systems and assign appointments based on an individual’s geographic proximity to the commonwealth’s mass vaccination sites. Using Google Maps, constituents were able to identify vaccination sites close to them with an easy user interface. Due to early supply constraints and the high volume of registrants, not all appointments were immediate—but citizens appreciated the regular stream of communication provided, thanks to automated messaging capabilities. Even if someone was not selected for an appointment in a given week, status updates and scheduling reminders were still sent out to reassure them that they were still part of the process.
“SpringML’s expertise in delivering agile incremental projects helped the commonwealth deliver the application in days and apply continuous updates with no disruption to service.”
—Prabhu Palanisamy, President and Chief Strategy Officer, SpringMLStreamlining the user experience
While getting people signed up for their vaccination was the immediate priority, improvements were made over time to enhance system performance and simplify the sign-up process. As new, and often larger, populations became eligible, the system was able to adapt and scale to meet the demand until vaccines became more readily available.
Keeping people informed, especially those waiting for a vaccination appointment, was of the utmost importance. Cloud Functions was used to create a microservice linked with Twilio and SendGrid to send a text notification or email when an individual became eligible to schedule an appointment. To account for varying levels of tech literacy, the system was made accessible to everybody from all devices, allowing individuals to determine their preferred means of contact and even flagging individuals to receive phone calls from human agents at the state-run call center.
“We placed a considerable emphasis on making this system easy to use for every resident, while establishing a mechanism to effectively communicate with those struggling to book a vaccination appointment on their own,” Moran added.
And while English and Spanish were the primary languages the system used, it was later equipped with the ability to translate and communicate in 10 other languages.
Ready for the future
Beyond the possibility of tracking any necessary booster shots for COVID-19, the system has opened up a new line of communication with constituents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The EOTSS intends to use the work and lessons learned to better engage with people at a state and local level.
The community appreciated receiving regular communication from their state government, even if it was not yet their turn for an appointment. Feedback through social media and the state’s mass.gov website was overwhelmingly positive, indicating that most constituents are eager to interact with their state government for issues of all kinds, not just COVID-19.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS) provides secure and quality digital information, services, and tools to citizens when and where they need them.
About SpringML
SpringML provides a lightweight foundation for building solutions rapidly. With expertise in industry-leading big data and analytics platforms, as well as domain knowledge in various industries, SpringML’s expertise and solutions have helped four other states streamline their vaccination process.