COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Finder

The COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Finder helped residents find and book open vaccine appointments nearest them. The tool compiled information in an easily searchable format from over a thousand vaccination sites run by the State, local health departments, pharmacies, and other health providers.

Challenge

During the initial rollout of COVID-19 vaccines there was little information about where vaccines were available and how to make an appointment. Residents eager to get vaccinated resorted to calling pharmacies, doctors, and other health care providers, resulting in long phone wait times, overwhelmed health care workers, and delays in getting vaccinated.

Innovation In Action

OOI saw the opportunity to streamline a confusing and time-intensive process by building an online tool that addressed one of the greatest challenges to finding a vaccine appointment. Using an agile, iterative development process, OOI worked with the NJ Department of Health to launch a basic tool within weeks and then continued to refine and improve it based on user testing and comments rather than spending months to launch a “perfect” product.

Impact + Metrics

Created a comprehensive list to locate open vaccine appointments in New Jersey, eliminating the need to spend hours on the phone calling multiple locations.
In 2021, the Appointment Finder was visited over 4.1 million times. By December 15, 2021, one year after the start of the State’s vaccination effort, more than 7 million New Jerseyans had received at least one dose, more than six million were fully vaccinated, and 1.6 million had gotten their booster shots.
By late 2023, the Appointment Finder had been visited more than 5.3 million times, helping these visitors get appointments for COVID-19 vaccines.

Status

The Appointment Finder was deactivated in September 2023. Appointments are now available through the federal vaccines.gov portal.

Resources and Additional Information

Key Partners

NJ State Department of Health
NJ State Office of Information Technology

Last updated on 5/1/24