New requests from state health officials will try to accelerate and streamline Pennsylvania’s vaccination process, requiring vaccine providers to administer most of their first doses delivered within a week after receiving them.
As of February 22, vaccine suppliers will have to administer 80% of the first dose of vaccines they receive within seven days of receiving them.
“I want the inhabitants of Pennsylvania to know that we heard you and that we are taking bold and decisive action,” said interim Health Secretary Alison Beam.
There will be fewer providers receiving vaccine allocations as well, said Beam, indicating that more doses will go to providers who “have demonstrated the ability to vaccinate most people quickly”.
This means, she said, that some providers will start receiving fewer initial doses than they did in the past. She said this is the most effective way to vaccinate most people in the shortest possible time.
“This order is indicative of a plan and it will take effect progressively,” said Beam, noting that about 1,700 suppliers are currently enrolled to give vaccines – although not everyone is receiving remittances regularly – and that number will gradually drop to just a few hundred .
The first focus will be on ensuring that providers provide a complete and complete picture of how many people are actually being vaccinated and who they are in demographic terms. These data will have to be communicated to the state within 24 hours.
This requirement takes effect immediately.
“We need to know not only how much vaccine was applied, but to understand precisely how much was administered,” she said.
Pittsburgh infectious disease specialist Dr. Amesh Adalja agrees that Pennsylvania is not performing optimally when it comes to vaccinations.
“There really should be no excuse for vaccines to be available, but to remain on the shelves,” said Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety. “This request emphasizes the urgency that we face with the implementation of vaccines in this state. I am concerned with reducing or suspending dose allocations as a punitive action because it can further complicate implementation and reflect a lack of resources and be better addressed by increasing faltering vaccine skills rather than punishment.
Adalja said vaccine priority ratings are slowing the process down.
“Vaccines must have the flexibility to move away from strictly priority groups to comply with the 80% rule,” he said.
The next focus is to make sure that your scheduling systems – both online and over the phone – are up to par. From there, said Beam, the Department of Health will have a better idea of which providers are compliant with this latest round of orders.
The telephone scheduling system is another highlight of Beam’s requests, and she noted that many of those eligible were left behind with online forms or phone lines that direct them to an online form.
“We want to make sure that the phone line is made up of a real, living individual who will be able to take your information and schedule an appointment for you,” she said, noting that providers should make an appointment for a second dose for a person at the same time they are making the initial appointment.
The goal, she said, is to get providers “to invest to ensure that their phone lines are available to those who are not so comfortable using the online mechanism.”
This part of Beam’s order takes effect on February 19.
The requirement that providers administer 80% of their first doses within seven days of receiving them is the last principle of requests to take effect. Beam said that working with the first and the second approach will give the Department of Health a better understanding of where the vaccine should go and how much of it should go there.
“After that, we may have allocations that reflect the fulfillment of the order,” she said. “It is important, from our perspective, that our partners – our suppliers – know what our expectations are before placing their next order.”
Megan Guza is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, [email protected] or via Twitter .
Tags:
Coronavirus | Location | Regional | Best stories