CVS Health will begin administering COVID-19 vaccines to approximately 10,200 residents and staff at 75 long-term care facilities in Idaho, beginning Monday.
Throughout the pandemic, long-term care facilities have been hit hard by the novel coronavirus, with deaths in long-term care facilities accounting for more than a third of all of Idaho’s COVID-19 deaths.
“What we have been hearing from residents is, ‘We just want our life back, we want our families to visit, to play cards with our friends,’ ” said Zendi Meharry, director of clinical operations at Cascadia Healthcare, a group that runs several skilled nursing facilities in Idaho.
According to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Dec. 18 summary of long-term care facilities’ COVID-19 cases, there have been 295 outbreaks and 7,199 total cases in residents and staff in Idaho. The data also shows 138 facilities have reported COVID-19 deaths. More than 500 people have died of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities.
Long-term care facility employees and residents are in the Phase 1A rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, part of a 130,000 strong group that includes Idaho’s health care workers. After its emergency approval by the Food and Drug Administration, 28,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine are arriving in Idaho this week.
Most of Idaho’s long-term care facilities, 315 of them, will receive the vaccine from CVS and Walgreens through the Pharmacy Partnership organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Niki Forbing-Orr, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokeswoman. The facilities that are not part of the Pharmacy Partnership will work with local vaccine providers, Forbing-Orr said.
Meharry said Cascade Healthcare has only had two facilities scheduled for vaccines. One is scheduled to start vaccinations next week and another at the end of January.
Walgreens officials did not say if the company will begin distributing the vaccine Dec. 28. The company, as part of the first phase of its vaccine rollout, sent vaccines to long-term facilities in 13 states that did not include Idaho, said Emily Delnicki, spokeswoman for Walgreens.
CVS Pharmacy teams will make three visits to each long-term care facility to ensure residents and staff get the initial vaccine shot and a critical booster, said Joseph Diebold, spokesman for CVS, in an email.
He said the effort will likely take 12 weeks.
In all long-term care facilities, getting vaccines to residents and staff is a large problem, Forbing-Orr said.
“The logistics of rolling out the vaccine program to long-term care facilities are complex due to multiple issues such as cold chain management, the need for a two-dose series with the vaccines that are currently available, infection control measures, reporting requirements, and others,” Forbing-Orr said.
To reduce complications, immunizers will come from CVS and Walgreens. They will include pharmacists, pharmacy interns and trained pharmacy technicians, as well as other health care professionals, Diebold said.
One important piece of the vaccination process is getting consent from facility residents, some of whom are suffering from dementia or other diseases that impact their cognitive ability.
Residents in long-term care facilities have a choice in whether or not they are vaccinated, and if they are not able to make decisions, their power of attorney, family members and physicians to decide if they will be vaccinated, Forbing-Orr explained in an email; she noted the pharmacies involved in the Pharmacy Partnership were working with facilities to educate residents and their families on the new vaccines.
Meharry said she believes the percentage of residents who obtain the vaccine in Cascade Health Care facilities will be around 90%, because they are ready to get on with their lives.
Steve LaForte, spokesman for Cascade Health Care, said long-term care facilities have been instructed to let pharmacies handle resident consent.
The role of the facility staff is to inform resident family members about when they will be vaccinated, Meharry said.
The effort to vaccinate long-term care facility residents and staff is the first step for CVS. It plans on eventually making the COVID-19 vaccine available at all CVS Pharmacy locations throughout the country when it becomes available to the public, Diebold said. Idaho has three CVS locations: two in the Treasure Valley and one in Twin Falls.
LaForte was encouraged by the percentage of residents vaccinated in long-term care facilities in other states. He said around 90% of residents were vaccinated in West Virginia and Connecticut.
He is a little discouraged at the percentage of employees vaccinated in those states so far, which is only 40%.
“That is disheartening, that runs the risk of perpetuating the ongoing issue,” LaForte said. “We have been (educating people) and ensuring that any public messaging out there works in our favor.”
"term" - Google News
December 26, 2020 at 08:09PM
https://ift.tt/3psMKUy
Idaho long-term care facility residents will receive COVID-19 vaccines Dec. 28 - The Spokesman-Review
"term" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35lXs52
https://ift.tt/2L1ho5r
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Idaho long-term care facility residents will receive COVID-19 vaccines Dec. 28 - The Spokesman-Review"
Post a Comment