- Los Angeles County patients will soon receive digital records of their vaccine, which they can store in their Apple wallet, according to Bloomberg.
- Initially, the digital token is intended to remind people to go back for the second dose of the vaccine, but it could be shown in places like concerts and airports.
- Healthvana, the software company behind the technology, says it is talking to event venues, schools and airlines.
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People who receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Los Angeles County will soon receive digital reminders that they can put in their Apple wallets, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The idea is that the digital token, provided by the software company Healthvana, reminds patients to come for the second dose of the vaccine – but it could be used to access event venues, or airports, if they bring so-called health passport systems.
“We are really concerned. We really want people to go back to that second dose,” Claire Jarashow, director of vaccine-preventable disease control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, told Bloomberg.
“We just don’t have the capacity to handle hundreds of requests for medical records to find people’s first doses and when they need to get the second,” she said.
Los Angeles County recorded nearly 720,000 coronavirus infections during the pandemic, far above the county with the second highest total – Cook County, Illinois, at 385,000 – according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
A Los Angeles hospital is so overloaded with COVID-19 patients that it is being forced to treat some people in the gift shop and in the chapel, as cases continue to increase after the holidays, CNN reported on Monday.
Healthvana CEO Ramin Bastani told Bloomberg that the digital vaccination record, which could go on an Apple Wallet or equivalent Google platform and is scheduled to launch this week, would be useful “to prove to airlines, schools , to prove who needs it. “He added that Healthvana is in talks with concert halls, employers, universities and schools on the application of its technology.
Bastani believes that services competing with Healthvana’s will emerge as vaccination becomes more widespread. “It won’t be like a credit card that you can use in the United States,” he said, adding, “Sometimes you can pay cash, sometimes you can use your Apple Wallet.”
Bloomberg said that Los Angeles County has administered 38,850 doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, so far focusing on health professionals, residents of nursing homes and paramedics.