Pitt students, volunteers create VaccinatePA to connect residents with vaccination info

The coronavirus vaccine rollout in Pennsylvania has created frustration for state officials and residents alike, with counties creating online registries to help get constituents the information they need and hospitals struggling to minimize wasted vaccine doses.

But a group of University of Pittsburgh students, with the help of a couple hundred volunteers, are hoping to maximize the amount of vaccine information available to residents. They created VaccinatePA.org, a website that pulls data for when and where vaccines are available, whether it is by appointment or wait list, and what information residents need to provide in order to sign up.

Richard Goulazian, 19, a Pitt student attending remotely from Bucks County, said VaccinatePA started when fellow student Ming Wang saw a similar effort in California.

“He saw what was happening and reached out to me to help develop the VaccinatePA website,” Goulazian said.

First-year Pitt student Courtney Sheridan, 19, of Murrysville got involved with the project in late January.

“I work with Richie as part of the Computer Science Club at Pitt,” Sheridan said. “They’d mentioned that they were looking for a few more people to help out.”

Sheridan and Goulazian are part of a core group of six students, four from Pitt and one each from Harvard University and Swarthmore College outside of Philadelphia, who developed the site and concept.

“In the beginning, when it was more of just a passion project, it was just us making the calls (to hospitals and pharmacies) and inputting the data,” Goulazian said. “As it’s grown, we’ve had to put a lot more work into making sure it’s a straightforward process for volunteers.”

Originally, five to 10 student volunteers were making phone calls to update VaccinatePA.org. “In the past week, though, we’ve brought on 150 to 200 more volunteers, not just Pitt students but a variety of people across the state,” Sheridan said.

Fellow Pitt student, senior Andrea Michael of Fairfax, Va., was a big part of that effort.

“I did a lot of outreach, emailing a bunch of Pitt clubs and trying to recruit other folks,” she said.

Michael said volunteers undergo a 30-minute training session, which Sheridan has been running, and are provided with a call script for what to ask each medical facility. They can choose how much time to spend making calls and when.

“The calls take about three minutes each, and it’s really easy to do them, know what to say and input the data quickly,” Michael said.

For Goulazian, a big challenge was ensuring the website would be streamlined and easy to understand not just for volunteers but for the primary demographic seeking vaccines — adults 65 and older.

“It’s been kind of a learning curve, focusing on accessibility,” he said. “But I’m kind of addicted to this. It’s really awesome seeing the feedback come in and seeing people benefit from this.”

Michael agreed.

“The impact is what’s kept me addicted,” she said. “I’ll find myself doing data correction in the middle of class.”

For Sheridan, one of the wildest aspects of the project is that she’s still never met her collaborators in person.

“I’m not on campus, and it just blows my mind that we’ve been able to do so much remotely,” Sheridan said. “It’s challenging right now because of who is able to get the vaccine. But as those restrictions open up, there will be so many more people who can go to the site and hopefully be connected with a vaccine.”

Goulazian said volunteers call between 300 and 500 potential vaccine sites daily and that even if they do not have time to volunteer, sharing the website with others is just as important.

“We have this very valuable information, but it’s only valuable if the maximum amount of people are able to see it,” he said.

For those who wish to volunteer, a Google form is available at VaccinatePA.org.

Goulazian said he’s happy to be able to help fellow Pennsylvanians.

“I find it really awesome that I can sit at my desk each day and still impact people across the state,” he said.