With Covid-19 vaccines soon to be available globally, Microsoft has launched a vaccine management platform for both government and healthcare customers.

A handful of Microsoft partners, including Accenture, Avanade, EY and Mazik Global, are working on vaccine-management offerings which use Microsoft cloud services.

“To achieve the goal of an efficient, equitable and safe delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine, close collaboration across agencies and partners will be the key to success,” Microsoft said in a statement late on Friday.

“It is imperative that implementations be delivered on time and customised to meet the needs of every government and healthcare customer”.

Microsoft partners are actively working with customers to deploy vaccine management solutions that enable registration capabilities for patients and providers, phased scheduling for vaccinations, streamlined reporting, and management dashboarding with analytics and forecasting.

“At Microsoft, we have been working with public- and private-sector organisations around the world to help support this monumental task of delivering vaccines as quickly as possible, but also in a secure and equitable manner,” said David Shaw, Chief Medical Officer and VP Healthcare, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft.

Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) has deployed over 230 emergency Covid-19 response missions globally since the pandemic began in March, including recent engagements to ensure the equitable, secure and efficient distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine.

MCS has developed an offering, the Vaccination Registration and Administration Solution (VRAS), which advances the capabilities of their Covid-19 solution portfolio and enables compliant administration of resident assessment, registration and phased scheduling for vaccine distribution.

It enables the tracking and reporting of immunisation progress through secure data exchange that utilises industry standards, such as Health Level Seven (HL7), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and open APIs.

“Health providers and pharmacies can monitor and report on the effectiveness of specific vaccine batches, and health administrators can easily summarise the achievement of vaccine deployment goals in large population groups,” the company said.