Innovative approach to COVID-19 vaccine registration: case study from Sri Lanka

Abstract

The Sri Lankan government initiated the vaccination program during COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. The Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Ragama was selected as one of the vaccination locations. To manage the general public according to the availability of vaccines and human resources, a pre-registration system was promulgated. The REDCap was used to design the pre-registration system because it is a free, secure, web-based application that supports data capture for research studies. The customizable and mobile-friendly feature of REDCap forms made it easier to design the pre-registration form accessible to anyone with an internet connection and a device. In reason that more than 5500 participants registered during November 2021 to get vaccinated, the main objective of the study was to scrutinize if REDCap could be innovatively used for vaccination registration processes. The first section scrutinizes the eligibility of the participants by calculating their age according to the given birthday (Function: datediff) with the limitation of eligible participants being permitted to continue, and they could select a predefined date and a timeslot. Only a limited number of participants were allowed per timeslot each day according to the availability of the drugs and human resources, hence, the predefined timeslots were blocked when the registration limit exceeded (Action: MAXCHOICE). Once the available dates and times were confirmed, the general public could register for the vaccine by providing their name, address, contact details and other necessary information. Prior to the final data submission, registrants were given an opportunity to check whether their information was correct, including the date and time of vaccination. Post data submission, registrants received a confirmation email with a registration number (Action: CALCTEXT) to be presented to the vaccination center. The facility of using different functions and action-tags to control data entry and the ability to view a summary before final submission made REDCap form a success.