Providence Health and Services, which operates several locations in Santa Clarita, is expected to receive 26,325 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed across their network of ten hospitals in southern California.
The initial wave of vaccines is intended for “high-risk” caregivers and service providers employed across the Providence network, which includes Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills and the Facey Medical Group in the Santa Clarita Valley.
“We have been working very diligently in getting ourselves ready for this historical moment,” said Sylvain Trepanier, DNP, RN, Providence regional chief clinical executive. “We’re poised and ready to start vaccinating all of our high-risk caregivers and providers that are working day-in and day-out to keep everyone safe.”
In the days leading up to the first deliveries of the vaccine, Providence has been making the necessary preparations required for the safe storage and transportation of the doses it receives.
“We’re very used to handling the flu vaccine every year, but the specific requirements of cold storage around this particular vaccine makes it a bit of a challenge,” said Sy Amirpoor, Pharm.D, Providence regional executive director pharmacy. “We have come up with a model for distribution that is a hub and spoke that would allow select hospitals within our region to service the other hospitals and then we created the systems for the ultra-cold storage in those sites.”
The hubs were categorized as Orange County, Costal Area (Santa Monica and South Bay), the Valley and the High Desert.
Related: Over 80,000 Doses Of COVID-19 Vaccine To Be Distributed In First Phase Of L.A. County Plan
The high-risk category of Providence caregivers includes approximately 20,000 people, which 40,000 are included across each of the high-, medium- and low-risk categories in total, according to Theresa Frey, Teresa Frey, RN, MSN, Providence regional chief quality officer.
“We’ve risk-stratified our caregivers based on the type of role that they serve in, ‘is it a nurse or a physician?’ And then we look at the location where they work, so if they work in a COVID unit or in critical care or the emergency department, different areas where they would have increased exposure, that’s basically how we’re risk-stratifying our caregivers,” said Frey. “It’s important that we offer the vaccine to those that are at highest risk and then we continue offering to the rest of our caregivers as we continue to get more and more vaccine in.”
In order to mitigate the risks to Providence’s capacity to provide care associated with the potential for caregivers to experience an adverse reaction to the vaccine, employees have been asked to schedule their inoculation the day prior to being off work.
Some potential temporary side effects have been associated with the vaccine, including soreness near the site where the vaccine was administered, headache, muscle ache, fever, chills and fatigue, according to Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer and director of the Division of Assessment, Planning, and Quality at LADPH.
As of Monday, there is no timeline for Providence’s ability to provide vaccination to the general public, however it hopes to vaccinate 90 percent if not all of its frontline workers by the end of December, according to Frey.
Providence has also volunteered to provide some sites to vaccinate emergency responders and essential workers, but the details of where and when that would happen is still in the planning phase as the healthcare provider focuses on vaccinating its frontline workers.
In addition to the actual work involved in administering the vaccine, the healthcare provider is also focused on preparing for how best to inform those that are vaccinated, that it is not a total guarantee of permanent protection from the disease.
“Part of the education that we’re going to provide caregivers as well as patients who will get the vaccine at later stages, they continue to need to observe all the social distancing, masking precautions, even though they’ve been vaccinated, just as we do with people who have recovered from COVID,” said Charles Bailey, M.D., Providence medical director infection prevention. “Because we just simply don’t know how long protection will last, how completely it may blunt transmission of the virus.”
Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or send an email to newstip@hometownstation.com. Don’t miss a thing. Get breaking KHTS Santa Clarita News Alerts delivered right to your inbox. Report a typo or error, email Corrections@hometownstation.com
KHTS FM 98.1 and AM 1220 is Santa Clarita’s only local radio station. KHTS mixes in a combination of news, traffic, sports, and features along with your favorite adult contemporary hits. Santa Clarita news and features are delivered throughout the day over our airwaves, on our website and through a variety of social media platforms. Our KHTS national award-winning daily news briefs are now read daily by 34,000+ residents. A vibrant member of the Santa Clarita community, the KHTS broadcast signal reaches all of the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of the high desert communities located in the Antelope Valley. The station streams its talk shows over the web, reaching a potentially worldwide audience. Follow @KHTSRadio on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
No comments:
Post a Comment