New self-serve tool aims to facilitate and simplify the process of finding a vaccination appointment for all Canadians

 

June 18th, 2021

Toronto, Ontario: Vaccine Hunters Canada (VHC) is proud to announce the launch of their multilingual website Find Your Immunization (“FYI”) , providing vaccine availability from pharmacies, pop-ups, and clinics Canada-wide.

 

The new website allows users to enter their postal code for access to available vaccine appointments close to their location and associated eligibility information. A user can utilize FYI to find the nearest appointment and availability to them, view information like booking method, vaccine type, dose number, and then book the appointment.

“All of the volunteer developers and I are super proud to launch this project that can save lives and make a substantial impact in the acceleration of vaccinations,” said Eric Herscovich, VHC Volunteer and FYI Project Manager. He continued, “We worked very hard to build a tool that aggregates many sources of information to make a vaccine search easy. Our tool is open source and we hope countries around the world will be able to utilize it to assist their vaccine rollouts.” 

Unlike most tools currently available, FYI includes appointments for a wide range of vaccine sites, including hospitals, pharmacies, popup clinics, city run clinics, and independent retailers. Appointment locations are displayed on a map and the tool is available in 22 languages. Pharmacies report and update vaccine availability daily, helping to ensure doses are not wasted. The website was designed to be easily and widely accessible, paying close attention to respect the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

The website is connected to a portal that primarily uses open-source code and aggregates vaccine availability, eligibility and location information from sources including pharmacies, healthcare practitioners, independent retailers, and hospitals, ensuring the information is updated in real time.

The team of volunteers built this tool with the goal of simplifying the process for Canadians, as well as allowing other countries, with delayed vaccine rollouts, to have the ability to rapidly clone and utilize the application.

Independent pharmacists or interested partners are encouraged to reach out to [email protected] about participation.

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Vaccine Hunters Canada is a community of volunteers dedicated to helping navigate the COVID vaccine rollout, understand vaccine eligibility, and connect eligible Canadians with appointment opportunities. Vaccine Hunters Canada is an independent, nonpartisan, volunteer-run community.