Los Angeles County residents who receive a COVID-19 vaccination are able to add a digital record of their vaccination to the Apple Wallet app, reports Bloomberg.
The county is partnering with Healthvana to add the vaccination proof to the Wallet app on iPhone. Healthvana is a patient platform that healthcare providers can use to deliver COVID-19 test results to patients.
The vaccination record helps to ensure that those who have been vaccinated receive their second shot in the two-dose procedure, and in the future, Bloomberg speculates that it could be used as proof of vaccination to access flights, concerts, and more.
For the time being, the Wallet vaccination record will alert people who have had their first shot about their second appointment to make sure each person is fully vaccinated.
"We're really concerned. We really want people to come back for that second dose," Claire Jarashow, LA's director of vaccine preventable disease control told Bloomberg. "We just don't have the capacity to be doing hundreds of medical record requests to find people's first doses and when they need to get their second."
Immunizations are also being tracked in registries and those vaccinated receive a paper card, but that card is easily lost so the Wallet app serves as more permanent proof.
The county is planning to send data to Healthvana each night, with information stored on Amazon Web Services' HIPAA-compliant servers. Jarashow told Bloomberg that it's as "safe as we can make it," and that she would "feel comfortable using it."
As of December 22, Los Angeles had administered at least 38,850 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to health-care providers, residents of long-term care facilities, and paramedics.
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