DoITT's COVID-19 Response
The COVID-19 pandemic brought technology to the forefront to ensure continued delivery of many vital government services. When the pandemic first hit, DoITT kicked into high gear to keep City services running for New Yorkers. These efforts included:
- Transitioning much of the City's workforce to at-home, rather than in-office work. To make this possible, DoITT built out a brand-new remote access environment and rolled out WebEx citywide. We also purchased and distributed tens of thousands of laptops and tablets for City agencies.
- Purchasing and provisioned 500,000 iPads for New York City public school students, who lacked an internet connected device at home to support remote learning. These iPads included unlimited cellular data plans, doubled as hotspots, and came loaded with the apps required for schoolwork.
- Overseeing the development of the City's Contact Tracing System, which is the centerpiece of the Test & Trace Corps efforts to track and contain the spread of the virus in New York City.
- Building the systems that support the GetFood program, which, at its peak, delivered 1 million meals a day to New Yorkers in need, and has now delivered more than 200 million meals.
- Building the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Donations Portal, the ACTrack system, the COVID-19 Zone Finder, and the DOE Mobile Student Testing application as well as an entire enforcement system that supports the City's multi-agency COVID-19 inspection efforts.
- Building both the City Clerk's Online Marriage License Platform (Project Cupid), allowing New Yorkers to obtain online marriage licenses for the first time in our City's history; and a Funeral Director Portal, which connected funeral directors with the deceased when the City's morgues became overrun.
- Enabling virtual arraignments and virtual family visits for the incarcerated, as well as online OATH and CCRB hearings; and we deployed new customer contact centers for dozens of agencies.
- Helping EMS implement telemedicine for low acuity calls to take pressure off the 911 system.
- Deploying the City's first ever tenant resource portal, which connects New Yorkers facing eviction with resources to help keep them in their homes.
- Deploying dozens of new service requests and knowledge articles in the 311 system for COVID-related issues, including enforcement for social distancing and face coverings.
- Managing a massive infrastructure build-out in all City homeless shelters that serve families with children to install Wi-Fi in each apartment.
DoITT's important work continues now that vaccines are available, and the rollout is underway.
VAX4NYC
DoITT worked with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to replace their vaccine scheduling system. The new system, which can be found at www.nyc.gov/vax4nyc, is intuitive and easy to use. New Yorkers can schedule vaccination appointments in minutes, and the site has been human translated into 10 languages for accessibility.
The system also manages every aspect of a patient's vaccination from the time they create an initial appointment through to completion of their second dose. That is because the other piece of the system powers the operations at the vaccination sites, including patient check-in, screening, sending a record of the vaccination to the City's Immunization Registry, and scheduling of second dose appointments.
This platform powers many temporary locations, with targeted outreach at houses of worship and NYCHA developments, as well as dozens of community-based organizations, which schedule residents of the hardest hit communities through reserved appointments. It is now also being offered to all vaccine providers citywide and has been adopted as the basis for the City’s mandated unified scheduling system.
To prevent New Yorkers without an internet connection from being disadvantage, DoITT also helped set up a vaccine call center. New Yorkers can also schedule an appointment by calling 877-VAX-4NYC.
COVID-19 Vaccine Finder
COVID-19 vaccine distribution began with an uncoordinated patchwork of providers. To help New Yorkers make sense of what it all, DoITT's created nyc.gov/vaccinefinder, an interactive site that has become a one-stop shop where eligible New Yorkers can find the closest vaccine provider to them and book an appointment with one click of a button.
The site has real time information on the availability of appointments for hundreds of sites citywide, including City, State, and private provider locations, and includes information about which vaccine is being distributed, what restrictions apply, and even offers directions.