Stanford Medical Center says it has revamped its vaccine distribution plan after doctors and nurses walked off the job last week in protest.
"Much of that was drawn up at a time when we were not experiencing the surge that we are in the midst of now," said Dr. Robert Harrington, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University.
In a letter to Stanford officials, frontline workers said there was no clear plan to vaccinate more than 1,300 residents and fellows, and employees who do not see patients on a daily basis were getting priority over frontline workers.
A hospital official said the original plan prioritized healthcare workers and older employees, but protestors said they failed to take into account an employee’s level of patient interaction.
"I think that we quickly realized that, we quickly pivoted and now we’ve really put the focus on vaccinating first those healthcare workers who are seeing patients in the hospital," said Dr. Harrington.
"Through yesterday we’re close to the first 5,000 vaccinated, which really is focusing on what we’re calling a tier one group, people who are working in the hospital environment. That group has a total of about 8,500 individuals and we think that we’ll get through that by, maybe even through the weekend."
Dr. Harrington said the medical center’s main priorities now are vaccinating employees at high risk either because of their jobs or because of the community they live in.
"So it’s tricky, because you have to take into consideration both of those and try to balance so that you adequately protect your workforce."
Stanford has also introduced a dashboard to improve transparency over distribution.
"(The dashboard) tells people how many doses do we have, of what vaccine, how many people we are expecting to vaccinate in the next couple of days and from which groups are those people coming," said Dr. Harrington.
Stanford is expected an additional 13,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to arrive this week.
