Kaiser Permanente, Providence, Legacy Health and Oregon Health and Science University are pooling their doses of COVID-19 vaccine and teams to run a clinic at the convention center in northeast Portland.
The goal will be to get the clinic up and running next week to serve Portland residents who are eligible to receive the vaccine.
The plan comes as Governor Kate Brown said that starting next Saturday, January 23, people over 65 and teachers will be able to receive the vaccine.
One of the obstacles to providing vaccines to large groups of people at the site is having sufficient supplies, according to hospital officials. Wendy Watson, chief of operations at Kaiser Permanente, said they are awaiting the larger supply of vaccines promised by the federal government.
“Now, how quickly we increase this really depends on the supply of vaccines,” said Watson. “This is probably the biggest limitation in all of this is how quickly doses of the vaccine are flowing to these mass vaccination sites.”
Watson said health systems are in the early stages of planning for a similar location in southwest Washington.
This story will be updated.