Olivia Adams, a local maternity leave software developer, made national news for building a website to improve the process for Massachusetts residents to obtain COVID-19 vaccines. Adams is now hosting a friendly competition from a group of Boston area volunteers who have built another alternative to the official government site.
The new website, VaccinateMA.com, contains recent information on vaccine availability in about 125 locations across the state. This makes it more comprehensive than Adams’ macovidvaccines.com, which tracks a much smaller number of locations.
“We think it can be a little easier to use than the current state website,” said website founder Zane Stiles, an associate in Bain Capital’s private equity department. “Most importantly, we are doing our best to obtain availability information in advance.”
At the Massachusetts Department of Public Health managed site, people it is often necessary to fill out a long form before discovering that the vaccine at a given location has run out. In VaccinateMA, a user can instantly see if a vaccination facility has doses available.
Stiles borrowed the idea for his VaccinateCA website, a similar website created by volunteers in California. At VaccinateCA, volunteers make regular calls to all vaccination sites to find out about vaccine availability. They publish the results on the VaccinateCA website, sorted by county.
The version of Stiles uses information from personal phone calls, but it also runs software that automatically collects the most recent appointment data from many vaccination sites in Massachusetts. All of this information is loaded into an Excel spreadsheet that users can easily search for by municipality or zip code.
In many cases, the research results include specific details about the availability of the vaccine. For example, a survey on Monday found no injections available at Brockton High School, but dozens of injections available Tuesday through Thursday at the Walgreens store on River Street in Mattapan. Because the vaccine’s inventory changes rapidly, users must sign up quickly when doses are available.
Stiles said he quietly launched his website a few weeks ago. Thanks to word of mouth, the project is attracting a growing list of volunteers. “People found vaccines on the website,” said Stiles, “and started sending me emails asking for help.”
Some of these volunteers work on the phones, obtaining the latest data on the availability of the vaccine. In addition, Stiles started working with Code for Boston, a nonprofit organization that provides technology assistance for community projects. “They will make the site more beautiful,” said Stiles.
Meanwhile, Olivia Adams’ website suffered some technical problems on Monday, which made access difficult. Adams said he thinks the problem is due to a bug in the software, not excessive public demand.
Still, Adams’ efforts caught the attention of the state government. She said on Twitter that she was contacted by state officials and plans to meet with them this week.
Hiawatha Bray can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.