In part 2 of our podcast with Phoebe Putney Health System (Albany, GA), we’ll look at how they planned out a vaccine strategy, months before doses were even shipped. If you missed part 1, you can listen here to find out how they addressed the initial COVID-19 surge in the spring of 2020.
As Phoebe's CMIO Dr. William Sewell, and VP and CIO Jesse Diaz explain, back in August of 2020, they were already preparing to receive vaccines. After researching what vaccines were on track to be released first, they ordered multiple deep cold freezers that could accommodate the extreme storage temperatures they knew they would need. They also planned out a vaccine center across the street, with proper scheduling and social distancing established ahead of time.
From the start, Phoebe was able to accommodate 700+ vaccines a day, and patients didn’t wait in line for more than 5 minutes.
Listen to the podcast above or on MEDITECH’s SoundCloud page to hear more about the site’s vaccine efforts, including community outreach strategies and the value of pop-up vaccine sites.
On our next episode, we’ll sit down with St. Luke’s Regional Health System for Patient Experience Week to hear how they leveraged their patient portal to support self scheduling of vaccines and in doing so, significantly increased portal enrollment.
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