GGD: vaccination speed doubled

In the spring of 2021, the GGD had to scale up from 500,000 to 2 million vaccinations per week. The vaccination rate varied significantly by location. GGD GHOR engaged Symbol to form a Lean team.

Symbol supported all 128 vaccination locations in the Netherlands to scale up and accelerate in a short period of time.

Challenge

Scaling up vaccination speed from 500,000 to 2 million jabs per week

Approach

Lean team of 5 consultants visited 50 locations in 6 weeks

Result

Vaccination rate increased from 22 to 50-100 jabs per hour per vaccination line

About GGD GHOR

GGD GHOR is the umbrella branch organisation of the 25 Municipal Health Services in the Netherlands. The organisation coordinates public healthcare and crisis response at a national level. During the coronavirus pandemic, GGD GHOR was responsible for coordinating the national vaccination programme: 23 million jabs in 9 months, administered at 128 vaccination locations by thousands of temporary staff. At the peak, in week 24 of 2021, 250,000 jabs were administered per day.

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The challenge

At the beginning of May 2021, approximately 500,000 jabs were being administered per week. Within a few weeks, this had to increase to 1.5 to 2 million per week. The availability of vaccines was no longer a bottleneck, but process efficiency at the locations was. GGD GHOR observed large differences between regions in how quickly vaccinations were being administered.

The challenge was that the locations were already set up and there was a constant flow of visitors. Major adjustments were not possible. Every hour counted.

Our approach

Symbol formed a Lean team of five Black Belt consultants led by Symbol director Dick Theisens as Product Owner and member of the national steering group. The approach was based on the Lean principle of Gemba: improving on the shop floor, not from behind a desk.

What was specifically done:

Visited 50 of the 128 vaccination locations
Implemented improvements directly on-site
Collected and shared Best Practices
Workload balancing
Developed reference design based on all lessons learned
Trained 200 employees in continuous improvement

The Lean team did not devise all the improvements themselves. Many improvements were conceived by local teams. The Lean team also ensured that best practices were shared.

“The support from the Lean team made a significant contribution to the numbers we vaccinated in June.”

Results

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
Vaccination rate per line	22 jabs p.h.	50 to 100 jabs p.h.	200%-500%
Number of vaccinations	500,000 p.w.	1.4 million p.w.	300%
Locations visited and supported	–	50 of the 128	–
Reference design for future campaigns	–	Developed based on lessons learned	–

From 22 to 50-100 jabs per hour per vaccination line
At the peak in week 24 of 2021, 250,000 jabs were administered per day. A national logistical achievement in which Lean process optimisation played a direct role.

Lessons learned

Process optimisation also works under extreme time pressure and in a context that is not fully controllable. GGD GHOR shows that small, targeted improvements on the shop floor, shared as best practices between locations, can have a major impact in a short time.

The second insight: sharing knowledge accelerates improvement. By presenting best practices weekly to all location managers, 128 locations benefited from the insights of 50 visits. That is the power of systematic learning within a network.

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GGD: vaccination speed increased based on Lean

GGD GHOR had to triple the vaccination rate in a short period of time. Symbol formed a Lean team of five consultants who visited 50 vaccination locations in 6 weeks and implemented targeted improvements. Result: the vaccination rate rose from 22 to 100 jabs per hour per line and the weekly volume grew from 500,000 to 1.4 million jabs.

Do you recognise this in your organisation?

An urgent scaling challenge where the process is the bottleneck. Large differences in efficiency between locations or departments without a clear cause.

Symbol helps to quickly find the bottleneck and improve specifically where it counts. Contact us for a non-binding consultation.

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