The following is an excerpt from an article on CalMatters.org.
For months, Alyssa Jenkins logged countless hours on My Turn, California’s COVID-19 vaccine registration site, as she searched for precious appointment slots for her fellow teachers.
“I’d become obsessed,” said Jenkins, who teaches high school English in Pacifica. “I was living in the system.”
When My Turn debuted in mid-January, it was supposed to be a one-stop shop, a place where every Californian could register to be notified when they became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and eventually make an appointment for their shot.
Instead, it’s become a lightning rod for many Californians frustrated by their inability to get vaccinated quickly and return to a normal life.
Appointments booked on My Turn — an average of about 100,000 each day — account for only about 27 percent of the vaccinations given each day across the state, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.
My Turn was developed with unusual speed for a government website.
State officials told CalMatters that they spent $50 million building the site. A contract obtained by CalMatters shows up to $18 million will be paid to multinational consulting giant Accenture. Of that, $6.9 million was spent on development, but there’s another $5.7 million management cost in the first year and another roughly $6 million a year for two more years. Accenture used technology from Salesforce, a San Francisco-based software company, and was assisted by a workforce management consulting company, Skedulo.
My Turn isn’t just an appointment clearinghouse. It has other critical functions: It tracks vaccine orders and distribution, collects reams of vaccination data and helps organize volunteers statewide. It can also transmit data to California’s immunization registry, which maintains confidential vaccination records.
But it is the public side of My Turn that has drawn the most criticism.
San Francisco County Supervisor Matt Haney said, “It’s better to have a statewide vaccine site than nothing at all,” but “My Turn has at times been glitchy.”
“I’m disappointed that we never created a pre-registration system (like) a lot of other states have had. Instead, people have to check the site multiple times a day,” he said. “It’s so unnecessarily inefficient. I do believe it’s creating a lot of stress and anxiety, and it creates equity issues.”
A confluence of problems with My Turn continues to frustrate many Californians: The technology was hastily deployed, leading to inevitable glitches because it wasn’t vetted enough before it was unveiled. It can’t reliably cope with the state’s constantly changing rules and wide variety of local eligibility qualifications. And the vaccine supply hasn’t kept up with demand, so until very recently, appointments were unavailable for most people.
My Turn has systemic problems, too. It does not incorporate doses sent by the federal government to pharmacies, and various systems from health-care providers haven’t yet signed up or aren’t integrated.
In essence, creating a one-stop vaccination app isn’t as easy as booking a delivery through DoorDash.
For weeks, state health leaders have urged patience as Californians flocked to My Turn, noting that My Turn is a work in progress and that it’s one — but not the only — way to sign up for COVID-19 vaccinations.
“We have made great progress in making My Turn the ‘front door’ for those seeking COVID vaccine,” said Darrel Ng, a spokesman for the state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force.
Rather than build on the state’s existing vaccine registry, California’s health department created a new one from the ground up. California maintains online systems to track childhood vaccines and flu shots, but nothing that could handle managing vaccinations for up to 40 million people.
The system is largely overseen by Blue Shield of California, which was tapped by Gov. Gavin Newsom in a no-bid contract to manage statewide vaccine distribution.
To read the rest of this report, click here.
