Abstract

During the United Kingdom’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign, general practitioners (GPs) have held responsibility for vaccinating housebound patients. This presented them with a large, complex and unfamiliar logistical challenge, namely determining the most time-efficient route to visit multiple patients at their home address. In response to a lack of existing solutions tailored specifically to vaccination, and in light of overwhelming demand, Vaximap (https://www.vaximap.org) was created in January 2021 to automate the process of route planning. It is free of charge for all users and has been used to-date to plan vaccinations for over 470,000 patients. This article analyses usage data to estimate the time savings (3 work years) and financial savings (£110,000) the service has yielded for GP surgeries, thus demonstrating that it helped to accelerate the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign at critical moments.

Details

Title
Vaximap: route optimisation for housebound vaccination
Author
Kirk, Thomas F. 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Barker, Adam J. 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Bodossian, Armen 3 ; Staruch, Robert 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, England (GRID:grid.4991.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8948); Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England (GRID:grid.4563.4) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8868) 
2  Squarepoint Capital LLP, London, England (GRID:grid.4563.4) 
3  Visa Inc., London, England (GRID:grid.474754.1) 
4  Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, England (GRID:grid.4991.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8948); Defence Deanery, Academic Department of Military Surgery and Trauma, Birmingham, England (GRID:grid.4991.5) 
Pages
182
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Dec 2022
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
23986352
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-022-00726-2
ProQuest document ID
2755010301
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.