»Impfrettung« receives award! dotSource and the KVT win German Stevie Award 2022

For their joint initiative to distribute leftover COVID-19 vaccine doses, which was launched in early summer 2021, the Thuringian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVT) and the digital agency dotSource have now been presented with the Gold Stevie Award in the »Umgang mit COVID-19« (»Dealing with COVID-19«) category. The project took shape in May 2021 as part of a hackathon.

Unlike at the beginning of the vaccination campaign in Germany, vaccination appointments were increasingly cancelled spontaneously or not attended from early summer 2021 onwards. Without flexible tools to inform about available vaccine doses, the worst-case scenario was that the precious vaccine would expire. With the website www.impfrettung.de, the KVT and the digital agency dotSource created an intuitively usable platform to distribute such leftover doses and reach the young target audience with vaccination information content.

This contribution to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign was acknowledged by the jury of the German Stevie Awards 2022, who named the »Impfrettung.de – Webseite zur Vergabe übriggebliebener Impfdosen« (»Impfrettung.de – Website for the Distribution of Leftover Vaccine Doses«) project as Gold Stevie Award winner in the »Umgang mit COVID-19 – Wertvollste Dienstleistung« (»Dealing with COVID-19 – Most Valuable Service«) category.

Award-Winning COVID-19 Management from Thuringia

This special category was introduced for the first time in 2022 to highlight outstanding COVID-19 management by companies and institutions. It included the joint project of dotSource and the KVT, which helped accelerate the COVID-19 vaccination campaign last year, especially among younger people, with its fresh design featuring the mascots »Pieks & Plopp« and its intuitive usability.

»Simply great and an example of how flexibly, efficiently and quickly action can be taken when all those involved are pulling together for the benefit of everyone's health. Congratulations!« a jury member of the German Stevie Awards commented on the project. Another jury member described it as follows: »The concept is simple and smart. The result is an appealing, informative and secure solution that has been brilliantly implemented and visualised.«

Promoting Innovative Ideas Beyond the Agency's Normal Scope

The idea for the website www.impfrettung.de was born in the run-up to an in-house hackathon and was put into practice by a group during the event – within 48 hours. With this format, the digital agency promotes the development of innovations that go beyond its normal scope. With its project proposal and the implementation in spring 2021, the »Impfrettung« team was in tune with the times and received encouragement and support from the Thuringian pandemic task force. The digital agency provided a large part of the services to the KVT for free. This way, dotSource contributed to accelerating the vaccination campaign and thus to fighting the COVID-19 crisis.

»The idea for the »Impfrettung« website came just at the right time for us. A year ago, there was even more demand for vaccine doses than supply could meet at times. Together with dotSource, we created a valuable interface for meeting the demand, which effectively reduced the number of vaccine doses thrown away. We are extremely pleased that the project has now even received nationwide recognition!« Jörg Mertz, Head of the KVT's pandemic task force, says.

As 2021 progressed, the situation regarding COVID-19 vaccinations eased and appointments were reliably kept so that www.impfrettung.de has recently been used primarily for information purposes. Nevertheless, dotSource and the KVT have created a blueprint for collaboration between companies from the digital industry and healthcare institutions in crisis situations.

»We are very proud of our »Impfrettung« team, which made an important contribution to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Thuringia as part of the Hackathon 2021. The fact that we have now also been presented with the Gold Stevie Award for this project makes us incredibly happy and encourages us all the more to promote our employees' innovative ideas beyond our corporate universe!« Christian Otto Grötsch, founder and managing director of dotSource, remarks.

About the German Stevie Awards

The German Stevie Awards are a cross-industry business award in German-speaking Europe and are being held for the eighth consecutive year. Organisations from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium had the opportunity to submit applications showing their achievements since July 2019 – in over 200 categories. This year, more than 400 applications were evaluated by around 50 jury members in five panels.