This episode of Pharmacy View Podcast with host Scott Carpenter, EVBC features guest Luke Renehan, CEO and Founder at VaxApp, an immunisation and diagnostic management platform delivering health services at community clinics, pharmacies, aged & disability care facilities, workplaces and schools. Luke shares how the platform was designed to safely vaccinate more people in less time with less cost.
As the son of an immunisation nurse, Luke remembers being constantly jabbed with all kinds of vaccines while hearing about the challenges faced by frontline immunisation teams. When COVID hit, Luke was in Europe, as border closures were announced he booked the next flight back to Australia. It was on the last day of quarantine that a phone call with his mum sparked the idea for VaxApp.
Luke has over 15 years of experience in events marketing and technology, designing and implementing systems that were really focused on how to improve efficiency and operational capacity. So, that is what was replicated with VaxApp—bringing together immunisation, technology and process and that is how VaxApp is now being used to support Pharmacies to safely vaccinate more people in less time with less cost.
VaxApp was developed to protect immunisation providers by reducing the face-to-face time required with patients. Having the entire workflow be supported by technology ensured the following:
- Increased the capacity to vaccinate
- Reduce average vaccination time
- Improved patient outcomes
A pharmacy vaccination clinic requires 92 actions to plan, deliver and report on a community vaccination clinic. VaxApp simplifies, reduces or automates 79 of those 92 actions.
Some of the additional features provided include:
- Online Booking powered by an immunisation eligibility engine
- Legal compliance with Australian Immunisation Register Reporting
- Inventory management and minimised stock wastage
- Pharmacy Program Administrator Payment Claiming
- Automated patient communications via email and sms
- Comprehensive reporting
- Paid vaccination processing
- Cold chain management compliance
- Vaccination Voucher Management
- Ability for Pharmacy to easily deliver pop up clinics and workplace vaccinations
The growing team, Luke shares has been able to push constant and quick updates based on the government regulations. Saying that they have access to wide range of immunisation providers along with a wide range of functionality and best practices in clinical workflow, Luke believes that has already been built to provide for the needs for Pharmacy into the future. In fact, they are already built to support the to 170 plus vaccines that are licensed in Australia.
Luke says that the biggest point of difference, however, is, the eligibility engine. It is the world’s first immunisation eligibility engine that uses over 30 data points from a client’s profile including age, medical conditions and previous vaccination history to automate the suggestion of what vaccines a patient can receive and when.
VaxApp is completely cloud-based and can be logged in to vaccinate anyone, anywhere and at any given time. Luke shares how their goal is to support the delivery of health services, especially preventative health services and how that goes beyond just vaccination. Later in the year, they are set to launch some other new health services and products.
Topics Covered
- Why and how VaxApp was developed
- Features of VaxApp
- Updates to the Platform
- The eligibility Engine
- Use of technology
- More offerings in the future
Key Quotes (Time Stamps)
- “Growing up, as a son of an immunisation nurse, I was constantly jabbed by literally any vaccine that mum could get her hands on, constantly heard about all the challenges of frontline immunisation teams, what problems they faced day in and day out by asking mom really how her day was.” (1:46 – 2:02)
- “I have designed and implemented systems that were really focused on how to improve efficiency and operational capacity by bringing, really, the offline processes together with the very latest in technology. So, combining my understanding, through my mum, of immunisation with technology and then also process or systems and workflow…that’s where things get really interesting for VaxApp, and as you mentioned earlier, the company that I found and am CEO for at the moment, that’s where VaxApp comes from—a cross-section of those three areas—immunisation, technology and process.” (2:10 – 2:47)
- “Prior to COVID, these vaccination programs hadn’t really changed much in the way they’d been delivered for about 25 years. If I was to use community vaccination clinics as an example, whether that’s something that’s delivered by a local government or mass vaccination centres on a much larger scale or pharmacy depending on the size of the community clinics that they run at a slightly smaller scale, these clinics are typically walk-in, they can have large wait rooms, quite long wait times, can require excessive amounts of paperwork whether that’s hand-written consent cards or the vaccination information that’s actually shared with those patients. It then requires excessive amounts of manual data entry using all these old and outdated systems as well. Then when the patient finally reaches the immuniser, there are additional eligibility questions that are often asked. So that could be anything from a minimum of 15 questions in the immunisation handbook through to quite the extensive pre-immunisation checks that are done for COVID vaccinations.” (4:55 – 6:00)
- “So many different steps that are involved! We mapped them all out, and there are actually 92 actions that go into planning, delivering or reporting on a community immunisation session. At VaxApp, we reduce, simplify or automate 79 of those 92.” (6:29 – 6:45)
- “Our focus was how can we help these immunisers to vaccinate more people in less time with less cost, how can we help them ensure legal compliance whether that’s around areas like reporting to the Australian Immunisation Register which is mandatory to do as of 1st of July 2021, but also other things like cold chain management compliance so there are correct storage temperatures of vaccines as well as vaccine management in terms of stock take and reporting that you need to do back to the government for accessing government-funded vaccines as well. And that final area that we are really focused around is how to improve those patient outcomes and patient experience with accessing the services.” (7:46 – 8:25)
- “We are able to push things out quite rapidly to be able to respond to what has been changing that quickly. There were times during the COVID rollout when we were pushing out updates essentially every two days just in response to what the government was announcing.” (11:30 – 11:44)
- “As a result of us being across a wide range of immunisation providers, it means we have a range of functionality that Pharmacies can leverage, really, best practice from other immunisation providers in their clinical workflow now. Also, we’re built already for what they need in the future.” (12:29 – 12:49)
- “So, we do have that benefit of 170 plus vaccines that are licensed in Australia can be delivered through VaxApp. That leads to one of our biggest points of difference—first to take you through one of the features of VaxApp, one of our biggest features is this eligibility engine. So, we’ve built—it’s really the first of its kind in the world—it takes into account over 30 data points from a patient’s profile, those are things like their age, their medical condition, their previous vaccination history, the state that they actually live in…. This eligibility engine automates the suggestion of what vaccine a client is eligible to receive and when they can actually have that vaccine.” (13:06 – 13:48)
- “We are completely cloud-based. So, that means you can log in to us from any device, phone, tablet, laptop or if it is a desktop computer that you have in your Pharmacy as well. Using any of the latest web browsers go to a particular link; you can log in and vaccinate anyone, anywhere any time.” (17:41 – 18:00)
- “We are really focused on supporting the delivery of health services, especially preventative health services. And for us, that goes well beyond just vaccination. Definitely keep an eye out for a new brand we’ll be launching alongside some other new health services and products later this year.” (23:04 – 23:20)
- “We are really-really focused on improving that clinical workflow so that you can deliver more health services in less time with less cost. And it makes a real impact then on improving those patient outcomes.” (23:21 – 23:32)
- “Pharmacies are really becoming even more of a point of care, especially for preventative health services.” (24:05 – 24:10)
Social Media Clips (Time Stamps)
- I wanted to stop Mum from getting COVID (1:16 – 6:45)/ Why and how VaxApp was developed
- VaxApp has a ton of features (7:02 – 8:25)/ Features of VaxApp
- World’s First Immunisation Eligibility Engine (11:25 – 15:09)/ Quick and constant updates to the platform
- The platform is completely cloud-based (17:06 – 18:00)
- More key features of VaxApp (18:05 – 21:43)
- What the future holds (23:01 – 24:38)
Useful Links
VaxApp Pty Ltd: Overview | LinkedIn
Scott Carpenter, EVBC | LinkedIn
Shopfront Solutions: Overview | LinkedIn
Aerion Technologies: Overview | LinkedIn
Aerion Technologies | Helping Non Techs Build Better Tech
