How PDFrw and fillable forms improves throughput at a Covid-19 Vaccine Clinic

PDFrw was used to prepopulate Covid-19 vaccination forms to improve the efficiency and integrity of the vaccination process in terms of federal and state privacy requirements. We will describe the vaccination process from the initial appointment, through the vaccination delivery, to the creation of subsequent required documentation. Although Python modules for PDF generation are common, they struggle with managing fillable forms where a fillable field may appear multiple times within the same form. Additionally, field types such as checkboxes, radio buttons, lists and combo boxes are not straightforward to programmatically fill. Another challenge is combining multiple filled forms while maintaining the integrity of the values of the fillable fields. Additionally, HIPAA compliance issues are discussed.