UPMC Northwest rolled out a limited community vaccination effort on Friday with the spotlight on Venango County residents 80 or older who have an affiliation with the UPMC system.
“We just got the word from the state Department of Health that it will work to get us more consistent vaccine doses,” said Katelin Speer, pharmacist and director of operations at UPMC Northwest. “We will receive some supplies next week to get things going for our community clinics. And that will kick start our efforts here.”
UPMC Northwest is following a pilot vaccination program now in progress at UPMC Hamot in Erie.
Community health care workers ranging from hospital employees to nursing home staffs and emergency responders have received the vaccine through UPMC Northwest. The process, one which provided more than 2,000 vaccines, will now be expanded here, said Speer.
“We finished up those clinics this week and now is a good time to pivot to the community as a whole. We learned a lot of helpful things from Hamot that will let us get off on a good foot with our clinics,” she said.
Open by ‘invitation’
Here’s how the first wave in what will be a full community vaccination process will be done:
A UPMC call center will contact residents who meet the priority guidelines that include age (80 years and over), residency in zip codes with high rates of COVID (all of Venango County) and association with the UPMC medical system.
The latter requirement is wide-ranging and includes anyone who has been a patient at UPMC Northwest, has a physician associated with the local hospital, has had laboratory work done there, all persons enrolled in the UPMC health care plan and more.
“We want to implement a targeted approach so we are checking our medical records and tag-teaming from every angle,” said Speer. “This way, we are able to get to the population most scared about not getting a vaccine. We are trying to leverage our resources to get to this group first. Basically, it is for anyone, 80 or older, that has touched UPMC Northwest in any fashion over the years.”
Wait for the call
In sweeping the UPMC records, the names will be compiled and UPMC will call individuals who meet those guidelines. Those telephone calls began Friday and will continue through this weekend.
The caller will set up vaccine appointments with the inoculations to begin next week at a location off-site from the hospital.
“The UPMC call center will contact each person. No one can call the hospital to get an appointment – the call will be made to them. There is no number to call us at this time. That could change but our plan is to stick with the calling program first and then look at other options down the road,” said Speer.
There is a built-in guarantee of both the first vaccine shot and the second required shot, said Speer.
“If you are called, you will get an appointment and you will get the vaccine. That is a guarantee as is the second dose 21 days later,” said Speer. “Initially, it will be in the hundreds of doses and we will run two small pilot clinics for those people early next week to get a feel for it.”
Larger clinics planned
“We would move, potentially, next week to make appointment calls for the following week. It just all depends on the vaccine availability. But we won’t schedule anyone without a guarantee that they will get the vaccine,” said Speer.
While UPMC Northwest has administered vaccines to health care workers and others in related fields, there have been no open and public clinics scheduled.
That issue, plus state statistics that show a higher number of vaccine doses administered in surrounding counties than in Venango County, has prompted some complaints that the hospital has a large supply of COVID vaccines on hand but is not making them available to the general public.
“We are not sitting on any doses that are not dedicated to the clinics we plan for as well as for second doses,” said Speer. “Everything we have has been allocated for these first clinics. There are no extras.”
Once the 80-over group has received the inoculations, UPMC Northwest intends to rapidly ramp up clinics for other groups. That could happen within a week or two.
“We will move quickly because we will be evaluating constantly. We will lower the age range when we feel confident that we gave the first group ample time to respond. But, we will not wait forever for that response,” said Speer.
“Our hospital intends to lead the effort to vaccinate large segments of the public and we are committed to doing this over the next few months. We can do that if we get the vaccine doses we need.”
