{"id":12581,"date":"2020-12-17T13:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T21:00:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-06-11T07:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:56:17","slug":"svna-signetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/svna-signetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Visiting Nurses Association (SVNA) transforms vaccine delivery process using Microsoft Power Platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seattle Visiting Nurse Association (SVNA)<\/a> is a family-owned healthcare business based in founder Neal Baum’s home state of Washington. During the 11 years since its founding, SVNA has become the largest community mass immunizer in Washington State, delivering flu vaccinations to approximately 40,000 patients a year. Current CEO, and founder’s grandson, Jake Scherf has embarked on a mission to completely transform the company’s vaccination delivery system, using the rapid development speed of agile Microsoft technologies to keep their nursing staff and their patients safe in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Utilizing Microsoft Dataverse, Power Apps and Power Automate, SVNA and their digital partner Signetic<\/a> were able to develop a solution in an incredible turnaround of just 8 weeks. The solution was used by patients, nursing staff and admin staff to safely deliver flu vaccinations. In this article we will learn about how this remarkable solution came to be, and how it has allowed SVNA to not only safely return to administering flu vaccinations, but to increase their vaccination output from an average of 40,000 patients per year to 60,000 in 2020, despite the year’s challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following on from the successful delivery of flu vaccines, Signetic updated the solution<\/a> to enable SVNA to successfully deliver COVID-19 vaccinations in King and Snohomish counties in Washington state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Watch Jake Scherf (CEO, SVNA) and Lukas Svec (VP of Digital Transformation, Signetic) share their Power Platform success story at Microsoft Ignite 2020: https:\/\/aka.ms\/Ignite\/SVNA<\/a>.<\/em>
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Business Scenario
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As with many areas of healthcare, the traditional processes used by SVNA to protect patients in its community were upended by the rise of COVID-19. SVNA used to run a ‘Fight the Flu’ campaign with on-site flu shot clinics in workplaces, schools, and communities across the entirety of the state, but in the midst of a pandemic, these flu clinics could no longer operate as they had before.
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By mid-2020 it became clear that businesses and schools would be closed during the flu season, and SVNA would need to find a new way to operate if it were to continue delivering vital flu shots to Washington state communities. With everybody working from home, the challenge became, “Where could the clinics be set up?”, “How could clinicians deliver the shots while\u00a0maintaining a safe distance?”, and “How would patients be able to schedule an appointment?”
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With the flu season just around in the corner, answers to these challenges needed to be found \u2013 and fast.
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Before Power Platform
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Historically, SVNA had run a paper-based operation to deliver flu vaccinations at employer-hosted clinics, with patients filling out paperwork on site that would then need to be processed after their vaccination was delivered. On average it took around 20 minutes to take a single patient through their vaccination, and up to 3 months to receive payment from insurance companies. Clinicians were having to spend their valuable time tracing paperwork instead of providing care to patients.
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Left: SVNA’s previous process; Right: Example of original paper form
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As one example of how painful this process could be, some clinicians had to pick up paperwork in Seattle, drive five hours across state to clinics hosted in Spokane, and fill out the paperwork on site. When they needed to restock their inventory of vaccines, they would return to the head office in Seattle and drop off their paperwork \u2013 this could be three to four weeks after the clinic visit had been successfully completed. Once in Seattle, the paperwork would then wait to get processed by busy billing staff, who may then have needed to re-contact patients to gain information missed on the original forms before finally submitting for payment. The overall turnaround for payment could creep up to 6 \u2013 8 weeks.
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From an obstacle to an opportunity
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Jake Scherf, SVNA’s CEO and grandson to SVNA’s founder Neil, knew that this situation needed to change. When considering how the company would tackle the problem of COVID-19, it was obvious that paper was not the way forward. They needed to reduce shared surfaces, and sharing of paper forms and pens was out of the question. If the solution was to be digital, then why not, not only tackle the problem of COVID, but also remove the operational headaches of their staff? This line of thinking brought SVNA from considering this an obstacle, to recognizing the opportunity to eliminate paper altogether. They could modernize and transform their processes to meet the challenges of their field and office staff. A few key opportunities with the new solution were:
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