How can we include information on one-off events or events with limited times?

[Mr0grog]

New Jersey has a new page where they list one-off local events and mobile clinics: https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/communitycalendar

Many PrepMod clinics also represent this kind of situation. (Example mobile clinic)

These are not included in their vaccine finder right now because:

• Times & dates are hyper-important here, and their UI does not surface that information. (i.e. needs serious design work.)
• Local organizers and community groups can benefit from having a clear list of these types of clinics.
• They want to keep the maintenance burden low and not store this info in multiple places.

They might eventually move these into the finder, but are not certain on that, and the above issues would need solving.

I think we want to list these in the API (and partners like Vaccinate the States and Vaccines.gov definitely should want them), but I’m not sure we have a clear or satisfactory way of modeling these, especially with the time/date issue in mind.

How can we model these kinds of locations well?

/cc @janovergoor @astonm

[Mr0grog]

I’ve asked on VtS’s discord how they handle or plan to handle this, and will copy that info over here when I hear back.

Some first thoughts from me:

• Add some new location types (we currently have PHARMACY, CLINIC, MASS_VAX):

  • MOBILE_CLINIC
  • Something for one-off events, but not sure what. EVENT? CLINIC_EVENT?

  https://github.com/usdigitalresponse/appointment-availability-infra/blob/f4917fe34a65d78dff1167a67426b2e1567289fa/server/src/interfaces.ts#L7-L11

• Add a field for hours, but not sure how it should best be structured.

  • VtS has a field for this, but I think it’s mainly just plain text and not machine-readable:

    {
      "hours": {
        "unstructured": "10:00 AM - 06:00 PM Mon-Fri, 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM Sat,  Sun"
      }
    }

    Or:

    {
      "hours": {
        "unstructured": "07:00AM - 10:00PM"
      }
    }

    Or:

    {
      "hours": {
        "unstructured": "Monday - Friday: 7:30 am- 5 pm\r\nSaturday- Sunday CLOSED"
      }
    }

  • FHIR has hoursOfOperation, but it doesn’t handle a limited set of dates:

    {
      "hoursOfOperation" : [{ // What days/times during a week is this location usually open
        "daysOfWeek" : ["<code>"], // mon | tue | wed | thu | fri | sat | sun
        "allDay" : <boolean>, // The Location is open all day
        "openingTime" : "<time>", // Time that the Location opens
        "closingTime" : "<time>" // Time that the Location closes
      }],
    }

• Alternatively, just put some additional text in description (formatting left up to each loader).

[astonm]

Re: the enum, these seem like TEMPORARY or POPUP or ONE_TIME to me.

Not sure how to handle the unstructured timing info, but as they appear at the moment, many seem easy to regex parse with good certainty. Maybe we could hand-code some conversions but keep around the original raw text and show both?

[Mr0grog]

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