Ninove sign and door header

Stad Ninove uses Qmatic to distribute vaccines in a safe way

When the Belgian City of Ninove was to set up a temporary center to distribute COVID-19 vaccinations to their citizens, they chose Qmatic to help them minimize waiting times while enabling social distancing for all visitors. 

An unordinary location

Since the vaccinations center was set up on a location built for other purposes, issues arose regarding the citizens’ arrival, waiting and queuing. The organizers needed a way to properly regulate the flow of citizens through a ticketing system. After that visitors have checked in at the reception, they have to wait in a shared waiting area until called to one of the available vaccination booths, where a short medical inquiry as well as the vaccination itself takes place. It is important that the citizens are correctly referred to the next available booth after their ticket number is called.

“As a local government, we are committed to providing various public services to our citizens,” said Bjorn Hemmeryckx, the IT manager at the center. “These services should be made available in the smoothest possible way.”

The solution

The city already had Qmatic’s Orchestra 6 solution in their town hall, where tickets for the services within the Civil Registry are distributed via a ticket printer and the calls appear on a TV screen via a Qmatic media hub. Because of the COVID-19 crisis, citizen service is now mainly done by appointment, and after some adjustments they could easily use their present system for the vaccination center.

Orchestra's Journey Management combined with two Intro 5+ self service kiosks makes the customer journey and arrival simple for the citizens of Ninove, and the visits safe and efficient for both visitors and staff at the vaccination center. The ticket printer and media hub were moved and connected to a local network, and after reconfiguring the solution with a little help from Qmatic, it was initiated in the vaccination center.

"For the system reconfiguration, I was able to easily call on Qmatic,” Bjorn Hemmeryckx said. “Once I have mastered the setup, I can easily make changes to the system myself via the Orchestra website."

The right lane: important and easy

A ticketing system was indispensable to control the flow of citizens and the referral to the various vaccination rooms. At the reception visitors themselves choose the correct vaccine line via the five buttons available on the ticket printer. Colour-coded options and two large TVs connected to a Qmatic media hub makes the process transparent and easy for staff as well as visitors.

The colours refer to the different brands of COVID-19 vaccines that are distributed to citizens depending on their age and sometimes underlying medical conditions. It is important that everybody gets the right vaccine, and then of course the same sort when it's time for the second shot.

The medical staff performing the vaccinations logs on to the orchestra website from their vaccination booth and put themselves in the correct vaccination line. After that, they can easily call the next citizen for their vaccination.

“Together with the auditory signal and the clear indication of the number and the room, this is a perfect solution for our center”

Tom Ooms, Center Manager, Stad Ninove Vaccination Center