With healthcare professionals at risk of responding to the record number of hospitalizations for coronavirus, jurisdictions are struggling to find extra hands with skills to help obtain vaccines.
A report released by the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Association of Governors in December cited 20 states that are considering recruiting nontraditional providers, including students, dentists, veterinarians and paramedics.
On Monday, the California Department of Consumer Affairs approved an emergency exemption allowing dentists to administer Covid-19 vaccines. The change came when California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state’s plans to aggressively accelerate the rate of vaccination.
The American Dental Association says dentists are authorized to apply the vaccine in several states, including Oregon, where the first U.S. dentist to administer the Covid-19 vaccine did so last month.
“Dentists are already trained to give injections to objectively more complex areas of the mouth that commonly have gag reflexes, large blood vessels, nerves and a tongue in motion,” the California Dental Association said in a statement.
Some health systems are taking advantage of a group of newly trained students to help with the vaccination effort.
“It will be a team of really smart and educated young people who will be our immunizers,” said Susan Mashni, vice president and director of pharmacy at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, in December.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham typically attracts nursing students to help with annual flu vaccinations. For the launch of the Covid-19 vaccine, they also convened medical and dental students.
“We have used some atypical vaccinators because we are trying to prioritize keeping our licensed nurses at the bedside,” said Dr. Sarah Nafziger, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “While we are launching the vaccine, we are simultaneously dealing with a sudden increase in patients.”
A “beautiful thing to watch”
The university even recruited public health students, who cannot administer vaccines, but have the knowledge to help manage vaccination posts.
“There is a lot of logistics involved when you have a vaccine site that processes more than 1,000 people a day, so it was really a community effort here on our campus,” said Nafziger. “It has been a beautiful thing to watch.”
Nafziger said that most UAB student vaccinators are not paid. Like many people who give vaccines across the country, they are offering their time.
New Jersey is calling on its citizens to join the state’s Medical Reserve Corps, a network of health volunteers being chosen to vaccinate. The state is looking for retired health workers in particular, who have the skills to administer vaccines and are not actively serving patients.
“There are a lot of retired doctors who are standing up to act as vaccinators,” New Jersey state health commissioner Judy Persichelli said during a news conference on Wednesday.
There is a bit of bureaucracy involved in recruiting vaccinators. They must be trained – a process of approximately two hours – and not everyone with the skills to administer Covid-19 vaccines is allowed to do so.
Dr. William Reynolds, president of the American Optometric Association, says that optometrists are an untapped resource in the vaccination effort.
The association says that 19 states allow optometrists to administer drugs by injection – and in California, they can administer flu and herpes zoster vaccines – but are not authorized to give the Covid-19 vaccine specifically.
Reynolds noted that optometrists are widely distributed and are ready to help smaller, rural communities that may need help.
“We are in smaller communities, as well as in cities,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of Americans live in a county that has an optometrist. Ninety percent of the Medicare population lives within a 15-minute drive of an optometrist.”
He said there is little financial incentive for optometrists to help with the effort, but vaccinating the population as soon as possible will help to get his offices – and the country – back to normal.
“We want to be part of the solution,” said Reynolds.