BUFFALO, N.Y. — On Tuesday, 2 On Your Side was first to report that the University at Buffalo launched a new website called "WNY Vaccine Hound," which aims to help Western New Yorkers find vaccine appointments quickly and without having to spend hours searching various sources on line, or perhaps having to drive hundreds of miles to find a vaccine quickly.
On Wednesday, we were able to hear from some of those who were part of a team of faculty, staff, and university students who helped develop the website and get it running in just three weeks.
The effort was the brainchild of the Chair of UB's Department of Operations Management and Strategy, Natalie Simpson, who compared the efforts of some who were trying to get a vaccine appointment to a frustrating game of Whack-a-Mole.
"It was like they had to try and look at an entire landscape, where they had to try and watch everything at once, because as soon as an appointment might appear it could be gone soon," she said.
Simpson, whose research specialty is in emergency response, noted there were hundreds of different agencies and entities involved in administering the vaccine, but that during the rollout, there was never "a baked-in way to know at any given moment where there is actually vaccine available. "
"What was missing was an aggregator," she said.
An aggregator
She used, for example, the screens that are at airports, telling travelers which gate their plane will be at, the time of departure, and if there are any last-minute delays.
"That's an aggregator, where the airport authority has commandeered information feeds from all it tenants, which are the airlines, and mixing in information from air traffic control to provide real time information that we just take for granted," Simpson said.
Without such an aggregator, she suggested, we might be left to wander the terminals, checking each gate in search of our plane.
"This is the direct equivalent of that, or the situation we found ourselves in," she said, in describing what was lacking in the vaccine rollout.
As she began thinking of a helpful solution, she says she didn't have to look far for assistance. She walked across the hall from her office and into that of the chair of UB's Department of Management Science and Systems, Sanjukta Das Smith.
"This is the department that basically offers the IT degrees, and they have a lot of talented people over there," said Simpson, who recalled that after explaining her concept, Smith was receptive and replied, "Yes, let me ask around and see what we can come up with."
Bright young minds
"She actually just brought it up in class one day, asking that if anyone of us had web development experience they should contact her after class," recalled Anthony Guarnieri, a student of Smith's who is pursuing his masters degree in Management Information Systems.
"As someone who had some experience in that, I stayed after class and she told us what the project was for and immediately I was interested," Guarnieri said.
Guarnieri quickly became part of the team that included students, staff and faculty from UB’s School of Management, the UB Information Technology group, and University Communications, all of which lent their expertise to various parts of the project.
"I thought this was a great opportunity to gain experience and to apply what I've learned for a great cause," Guarnieri said. "Within a day or two, we were having meetings about how we wanted to approach it, what platform we would host it on, and it spun up very quickly from there."
WNY Vaccine Hound does not schedule or manage appointments, but is a one-stop website that searches more than 100 local sites daily, looking for evidence of open appointments.
The website, in its infancy, is still be developed post launch.
"It's still a puppy," laughed Simpson.
A puppy, which promises to take a bite out of the frustrations sometimes seen with trying to get a vaccine.