Who's gotten their coronavirus shots? Where is vaccine running low? NC tracking system will know

The COVID-19 Vaccine Management System, or CVMS, will both allow state health officials to monitor vaccine inventory and allow the public to set up appointments to get vaccinated.

“Every stakeholder in the whole food chain, if you will, will have access to the same real-time information," DHHS Deputy Secretary Sam Gibbs said Tuesday.

CVMS is set to go live Dec. 9 – one day before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could grant emergency use authorization to Pfizer for its vaccine candidate.

Gibbs said the system will improve communication between the state, storage facilities and medical providers, allowing officials to see how much vaccine is delivered to North Carolina, how much is in storage, where it’s being shipped and where the vaccine is running low.

“We wanted a system to keep track of that because inventory is, especially initially, going to be tight, so we want to make sure we fairly and equitably distribute the vaccine," Gibbs said. "If one of the locations is running low on a particular vaccine, we can look across the state to see where it is and make adjustments as necessary.”

Hospitals, doctor’s offices and other providers will use CVMS to order more vaccine.

Eventually, the system will allow the public to schedule appointments to get vaccinated, and it will track people’s dosing schedule, as at least three of the potential vaccines require two doses taken about a month a part.

“When you get your second shot three, four weeks later," he said, "[CVMS will] make sure you get the vaccine that matches up with the first shot you got."

Nursing home employees will be able to register residents and track their vaccine progress. Both those workers and residents will be among the first to be vaccinated as high-risk groups.

“Everybody is working around the clock on this, and I feel that we are as prepared as we can be," Gibbs said.

The state has invested about $1.2 million in the system so far, paying $867,938 to Accenture and $351,580 to Salesforce, DHHS spokeswoman Catie Armstrong said.

All of the data collected through CVMS will be sent to a federal database so the officials running Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing vaccine development and distribution, can track the progress of vaccine distribution in North Carolina.