How the CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado successfully orchestrated over 300,000 vaccinations

With half a million people out of work, out of school, and disconnected from their communities across Colorado during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric Parrie felt an urge like never before to serve.

 “I was raised by my mom and dad with the idea that every individual person counts,” said Parrie. As CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado, he coordinated over 2,000 frontline workers in the successful testing and vaccination of thousands of people throughout the state. “I’m fired up every day to do this as fast as possible and at the biggest scale.”

This fire inside both Parrie, as well as his employees, was critical to the success of COVIDCheck Colorado’s emergency services. 

CHALLENGE

When COVIDCheck Colorado first launched, it faced a monumental task. The emergency response program needed to provide testing and vaccinations for thousands of people desperate for a return to normalcy. To conduct an operation of this scale quickly while also maintaining the best possible patient outcomes, Parrie knew he must solve workforce management. First and foremost, this meant utilizing his supply of public resources as effectively as possible. “We wanted to optimize the use of resources so that every public dollar was spent for maximum public health impact,” he shared. 

Efficiently using public resources like this required empowering his teams with software capable of operational excellence. Moreover, he needed software that could adapt and scale quickly to change.

“We were in a world of tracking through spreadsheets, Post-it Notes, and text threads. It was hard to know where people were supposed to be, and when they were supposed to show up. It was highly inefficient and frustrating for our staff, and it was leading to worse outcomes for [patients],” reflected Parrie. 

He also needed a workforce solution that would clearly align everyone in the organization with the same priorities and values as well as something that maximized positive patient outcomes.

“The way you ensure the outcomes you want … is to really steep everyone in core values,” said Parrie. “Humility, action, and excellence are the ones we chose for ourselves.”

SOLUTION

Parrie decided Workforce.com was the perfect partner to help COVIDCheck Colorado accomplish its mission in a rapid and effective manner. 

“As the CEO, I’m not doing my job, if I’m not empowering all the other leaders on my team to do theirs. And Workforce.com is a part of that power,” shared Parrie. “It’s giving the team the tools they need to excel.”

The software unified scheduling, time and attendance, and compliance into a single, intuitive platform for all teams to use together in real-time. It provided Parrie’s employees with the tools they needed to deliver effective and compliant care across the state, while also aligning them better with the overarching mission, values, and strategy of the organization as a whole. 

The system proved scalable, adapting to new testing sites being set up weekly, while also handling last minute scheduling and attendance changes seamlessly. Most importantly, the new system reduced time spent on tedious administrative tasks, allowing Parrie and his organization to focus instead on ensuring high quality outcomes for patients. 

RESULTS

Under Parrie’s direction, COVIDCheck Colorado grew to 55 sites and administered over 800,000 tests and 300,000 vaccines. Throughout it all, Parrie had Workforce.com by his side. Here are some of the benefits he and COVIDCheck Colorado experienced with Workforce.com:

Improved patient outcomes and satisfaction

With updated technical abilities for attendance tracking, communication, and labor allocation, patients experienced a higher level of care.

“[Communication] came alongside being nimble in the use of technology to quickly get patients the service they needed … that yielded great results for us,” said Parrie. “We surveyed patients … and consistently our Net Promoter Score was in the 90’s.”

Efficient allocation of labor across multiple sites

The centralized location of employee and demand data made it easy for managers to coordinate where and when labor was needed.

“We were able to look at the number of appointments that were booked at a given site, on a given day, and rightsize the hours, staff, and availability at that site, in accord with that data,” said Parrie. 

Enabled further growth and scale

COVIDCheck went from “4 to 1,400” employees in a matter of weeks; this coincided with new testing sites opening consistently. Even in the face of this massive amount of growth, they remained organized and efficient in their operations.  

“Workforce.com enabled us to take action better,” says Parrie. “We could very quickly set up and organize a staff, even at a site that had not existed a day or two prior.”

The intuitive nature of Workforce.com’s interface as well as the ability to create new locations instantly in the system made scaling across the state of Colorado hassle-free. 

Strategic and operational alignment across teams

Parrie knew he needed all his employees on the same page in terms of the mission and drive of the organization. In order to operate an emergency response organization like COVIDCheck Colorado, communication and alignment of values is essential. 

“Our site optimization team, operations, finance, legal … they’re all stitched together with our mission and values. That is the soul of the organization,” said Parrie. “But the skeleton of it is tools, like Workforce.com, that actually enable them to communicate and deliver on shared goals.”

Minimization of compliance risks

Parrie’s site optimization teams used Workforce.com to keep track of important medical compliance requirements. For instance, managers could use the qualifications feature to make sure only medically certified employees were administering vaccines. 

Through his leadership with COVIDCheck Colorado, Parrie helped thousands of people return to normal life. As CEO he was faced with a tremendous amount of responsibility – and he chose Workforce.com to help shoulder some of that responsibility. 

“The value and magic of something like COVIDCheck Colorado and of a system like Workforce.com is that the system actually is merciful,” reflected Parrie. “It’s delivering care and service in a way you may never see and never know or acknowledge, but it’s there doing work – and that is incredibly powerful.”