Central management of the pandemic. This is the best card Belgium will have played to make the vaccination plan a success. That is what Dr. Lambert Stamatakis said. For who else but this specialist in crisis management and emergency medicine could set up the 41 fixed vaccination centers (and twelve mobile centers) in the southern half of the country? "I took over from Yvon Englert and continued this challenge surrounded by an excellent multidisciplinary team. Our centers work wonderfully, in close collaboration with AViQ, primary care in Wallonia and the event operators for the logistics." 

Dr. Lambert Stamatakis' dream team is composed of a doctor, a nurse, a logistician, a data manager, an epidemiologist, a pharmacist, two soldiers and a communication team. There are as many disciplines as there are IT equipment needs: "DECT telephony covering huge areas, Wi-Fi coverage, tablets, scanners or the network of information screens. IoT also plays a key role in maintaining the temperature of our refrigerators." 

If the installation of the 41 centers requires an uncompromising strategy, what about the challenge of moving twelve mobile centers every three weeks? Stamatakis emphasizes the vital nature of connectivity: "Each vaccination requires an appointment in advance and data processing in the federal software. When you consider that we carry out up to 52,000 vaccinations a day, the importance of excellent connectivity becomes obvious. Hats off to Proximus."

"Each vaccination requires an appointment in advance and data processing in the federal software. When you consider that we carry out up to 52,000 vaccinations a day, the importance of excellent connectivity becomes obvious."

In addition to his medical perspective, Dr. Stamatakis is very positive about the first effects of this almost unprecedented challenge. He understands that there is great demand for getting everything back to normal and can see how economic life is picking up. "Companies are recruiting. That is a barometer that does not deceive. Of course, the impact on the health sector has been enormous. In human and financial terms. The staff are on their knees and we now have to get the ball rolling again to catch up with the backlog of normal pathologies. In all transparency, the specialist is already talking about the third dose. It will probably be needed to counteract the variants. For us, this means preparing new scenarios and being ready quickly to reactivate vaccination centers and other vaccination actors, such as vaccination in general practices. We know how it works now."

The scope of this hugely technical and logistical operation was enormous:

In addition, the supply of vaccines was very variable and unpredictable. This meant Proximus had to react quickly, both for the initial opening of the 41 centers and for the extensions to the 12 mobile vaccination centers.

Thanks to its strong ecosystem, Proximus was able to finalize everything in time for the start of the vaccination campaign. The core team at Proximus consisted of about 25 people. All the parties involved added up to a team of 270 people. "It was all about teamwork, with a key role for the project manager for direction. The approach to these projects normally follows a pretty fixed pattern. Now it had to be done differently and especially faster," Geert concluded.  

SpearIT is een middelgrote ICT-integrator en Proximus Accelerator met de middelgrote ondernemingen als doelgroep.