Salesforce Cloud helping deliver vaccines to billions the world over: exec

Salesforce's Covid-19 response technology solutions, centered around its Vaccine Cloud, its technology that helps its clients manage vaccine inventory management, appointment scheduling, outcome monitoring, public health outreach, can help deliver authorised vaccines to billions of people across the world, a top executive at the firm said.

Geeta Nayyar, Executive Medical Director and General Manager for Healthcare and Life Sciences, Salesforce said the company is working with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and customising Vaccine Cloud to meet the needs of its customers which include governments, healthcare providers and businesses.

"Vaccine Cloud is a unified platform that helps governments, healthcare providers, nonprofits, and organizations deliver and transform vaccination administration at scale on the Salesforce platform. It connects vaccines to people with simplified inventory management and appointment scheduling. And, as we move into the last mile of vaccine distribution, digital credentialing will be more important than ever as employers, event venues, airlines and countless other organizations think through return to daily life in the new normal," Nayyar said.

Salesforce technology alliance with Gavi will help to ensure fair, rapid and equitable distribution of at least two billion Covid-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.

The Vaccine Cloud technology was launched in January this year. It helps government and public health agencies monitor vaccination progress, healthcare provider organisations to streamline vaccination processes. It also helps businesses, personnel, retailers and residents by simplifying the registration and scheduling appointments process.

The delivery of all these processes means Saesforce has to collect, process and store some amount of data, much of its personal and health related.

"Vaccine management and distribution is obviously a new and complex challenge...However, for technology to be effective, it must be built responsibly—and no matter how good a tool is, people won’t use it unless it has their trust. As we move forward, we are keeping human rights, security and privacy at the forefront of the products and solutions we deliver, how we determine health status, how people share their data and how the data is ultimately used and deleted," said Nayyar.

India has over 4,000 Salesforce employees, and awareness campaigns for vaccines are one of the largest areas of need for the Indian government, she added.

"Specific to Salesforce, we’ve made a donation of $1.1 million to local partners to support vaccine awareness and distribution efforts across priority areas for the most vulnerable populations. A global employee giving and matching campaign will further contribute to supporting various organizations in India. The campaign generated more than $1 million including the matching by Salesforce to date.

Our employees from across the world are also manning a 24/7 volunteer helpline to provide Salesforce employees and families Covid related information. In addition, Salesforce is also delivering medical supplies to different cities across the country," she said.