Tag Archives: vaccine

With gratitude – family says it all

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I’m challenged to write something brand new on gratitude this Thanksgiving week even though this has been a far better year than 2020. At the same time, it has not been as positive and as “back to normal” as we had all hoped as COVID cases surged over the summer. So, I went back to my 2020 post to see how I had reflected on gratitude a year ago at a time when we weren’t gathering as families the same as we are now. I share it again here as some things haven’t changed.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our immediate family this past Sunday at our new house. My two daughters, their husbands, and four grandkids. One of my daughters has in-laws in Florida so she and her family will travel there for the holiday. We now live within half hour of our other daughter and her in-laws live near her. We will celebrate with all of them on Thanksgiving as we have done many years in the past.

While my husband is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister, if I suggest we say something before dinner at a special family gathering, he will often pass it over to me. This year it was simple. I asked everyone to hold hands (as the grandkids wondered what I was doing) and I commented on family being together again and that I was thankful for each and every one of them as I looked each one in the eye around the table. The adults know they are my “big rocks” as Stephen Covey would describe. And someday the grandkids will understand that as well.

Being together with family says it all. I am truly grateful that we didn’t lose anyone to COVID, that we are fully vaccinated and that we can all be together again.

May you share similar love and gratitude with those closest to you this Thanksgiving 2021. As my StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, likes to say – “let the season of gratitude begin”.

Related Posts:

Treasuring family after a long year

The year we meet again

Family first

 

COVID-19 – listen to the experts

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Dr. Anthony Fauci may be a household name for your family. But what about Andy Slavitt?  He is a policy expert who served in the Obama administration first to save health.gov and then as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. During the pandemic he provided reliable, relatable information and education with his daily tweets at @ASlavitt and award-winning “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt” podcast.  He quickly became a household name with my family and a trusted resource. Many trusted him and looked to him for insight.

He served as President Biden’s Senior Advisor on COVID-19 for the first 120 days of the new administration. He is now back from the White House and in his chair on the renamed podcast – “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt: Our Shot”.  As the podcast description says, “Just as he took us through the pandemic, this 10-week series called Our Shot is about leading us out. It’s an insider’s guide for getting closure on what happened, how we emerge, and what must come next.”

Busy as my schedule is, I am trying to keep up with this new series. So far, I have heard his interviews with CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. And I am halfway through Andy’s just released book written primarily prior to his recent stint in the Biden Administration. His book, “Preventable – The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S Coronavirus Response”, is a must read. Not just to understand what happened but how do we prevent it from happening again.

While COVID-19 may seem to be behind us, it is not when you consider the variants and the percent of the population not yet fully vaccinated. Continue reading →

Treasuring family after a long year

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I hesitate to say “post COVID” or “post pandemic” even though there are signs of the new normal as organizations roll out their plans for employees to return to the office, states drop their mask mandates and businesses are allowed to open at full capacity. But when will we be truly “post COVID”? While the U.S. COVID-19 cases and deaths are at new lows, the global situation is far different and the variants continue to be a concern. Globally, there have been more deaths in 2021 than all of 2020. So it is far from over.

I am glad that I live and work in states with high vaccine rates and where mask mandates were accepted and not protested. In both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, over 60% of the population has received the first dose. In fact, all the New England states are at that level of vaccination, and all are over 50% fully vaccinated.

In the past few weeks, I have experienced more “firsts” in this transition to the new normal. We had friends over for dinner. Our Saturday morning outing at the local farmers market no longer requires masks. Wandering the stalls with our two little dogs, it is good to chat with strangers like we used to. We went to a Red Sox game and seeing so many people in one place was a big change. The wave doesn’t catch on the same at partial capacity but the enthusiasm for the Red Sox hasn’t changed. At my hair salon, my most recent haircut was the first without a mask; they are no longer required if you are vaccinated. On my daily walks, I no longer cross the street when someone else is walking towards me with their dogs but rather stop and talk and let the dogs do their sniffing thing.

Being in public places without a mask is one thing. But being with family is what I have truly missed. Our immediate family (our two daughters, their husbands and all the grandchildren) has not all been together since early November. Our few get togethers last year were outside socially distanced with masks as needed. We respected everyone’s comfort level and deferred to the least comfortable. Continue reading →

Systems at scale and optimized workflow

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IT teams work at scale all the time supporting thousands of users. Workflow optimization is often a goal for new systems. The mass vaccination sites and events are at scale and depend on an optimized, efficient workflow. With over 2 million doses a day being administered now in the U.S., these sites and events are becoming more prevalent and will continue over the next several months. While there was much publicity of the problems in the vaccine rollout early on, there have been many improvements in the tools to find vaccine locations and schedule appointments, and the administering of shots. In part that has been due to improved technology and better workflow design.

Two health systems doing mass vaccination sites/events have shared their playbooks in recent weeks for others to learn from. UCHealth in Denver is offering a playbook, “COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Drive-Through Playbook”. It is a 59 page comprehensive and very detailed playbook covering organizational structure and partner involvement, pre-event planning, contingency planning, patient communication, staff, provider and agency recruitment, vaccine storage and handling, and media communications. The Atrium Health playbook is a higher-level guide for leaders – “A Leader’s Guide to Safer, Faster and More Equitable Community Vaccination Events”. Both are valuable tools whether you are in the planning stage or tweaking your current operation.

To build on these tools, I recommend checking out two recent interviews that Bill Russell did at This Week in Health IT.

Continue reading →

The year we meet again

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This is one of those weeks where I throw out what I was writing to mark an historic moment. It has been one year since the worldwide pandemic was declared. We all remember that week. It was a week when suddenly everything we knew as normal changed.

But a year later, this same March week feels like a hopeful turning point. The CDC has released guidelines on what fully vaccinated people can do. Congress has passed the American Rescue Plan and President Biden has signed it. The President is projecting we will reach 100 million vaccine doses in arms by his 60th day in office (next week) compared to his original goal of 100 million in the first 100 days. And he has directed the states to make the vaccine available to all adults by May 1 while the federal government mobilizes thousands of vaccinators and launches a new website to help people find the vaccine site closest to them.

I wrote last week that my husband and I have received our first dose. Our “magic date” as I call it is April 10 (though I know it is about science, not magic!). That is the day after our 45th wedding anniversary. That is when we will be fully vaccinated – two weeks after our second dose appointment on March 27. Like everyone who has missed spending time with their families we are looking forward to breaking bread together again. My husband and I are talking about which of our favorite restaurants we will go to for an inside meal for the first time in over a year.  And we are making plans to go somewhere for a long weekend.

I have shed tears many times this past year as I saw story after story of healthcare workers struggling to deal with overflowing ICUs and families describing the loved ones who they lost to COVID. This week I had tears reading the story of a young EMT in my town who transported many COVID patients to the hospital every day in March, then got COVID himself in April and nearly died. After many months of recovery, he is now back on the job. I had tears listening to the COVID-19 briefing on Monday. My emotions were a combination of sadness and anger as I listened to the experts unfiltered and thought about all the lies and misinformation and ignoring of science that we lived with the past year. We know the pandemic didn’t have to take the toll on this country that it did. Continue reading →

We got our shot!

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My husband and I got our first dose vaccine shot on Saturday. And yes, there is a sense of relief to be at this point a year after it all started.

March 5, 2020 feels like the last normal day for me. I had lunch in a restaurant with my daughter who is an NP at a Boston hospital. I was anxiously waiting to hear that HIMSS20 would be cancelled and wondered what they were waiting for. I discussed the risks of going with my daughter. I decided during that conversation not to go even if they held it (I got the cancellation notice as we were leaving the restaurant). I asked her about the Coronavirus from a clinical perspective. She said we’re “f’d” and projected 100,000 cases in the U.S. by April 1st. We now know it was to be far worse.

As a frontline healthcare worker, she was fully vaccinated by early January. Two weeks ago, she helped about fifteen of her husband’s 65 years and older family members and their friends navigate the somewhat confusing multiple websites in Massachusetts to schedule first dose appointments.

Here is my Rhode Island story. The vaccination site was a junior high in our town. Overall, it was a smooth process. When we pulled into the parking lot there was a sign that said wait in your car until 5 minutes before your appointment to avoid people crowding at the door. Our town Mayor was there working – that was a pleasant surprise. He took temperatures and asked initial screening questions at the door. I greeted him and commented on the fact that he was working – his somewhat joking reply was, “I have to earn my keep”.

Next, we went to the “check in” table. We gave them our IDs and they looked us up on the list of people scheduled for an appointment that day. The list was in no sort order, so it took a while. We then moved into the gymnasium where there were about eight vaccine stations. Firefighters and EMTs gave the actual shots. My husband was considered to have moderate risk of a reaction, so his PCP advised him to stay for 30-minute observation. When he shared that information, a physician was called over to ask him a few questions before he got the shot.

With information on how to sign up for the CDC’s v-safe app (after vaccination health checker), and our vaccination cards in hand we went to the observation area with many seats set up socially distanced. There were several people wandering around the area offering to help you make your second appointment or you could just use the QR code they provided on posters visible on the backs of the chair in front of you to sign up for 4 weeks out.

If you know me well, you know that I always have an eye out for process improvements. Continue reading →

What is a “Digital Dog”?

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My colleague, David Muntz, coined the term “digital dog” this week when he described to our StarBridge Advisors team how my two little dogs are so well informed as they walk with me every day while I listen to podcasts. I loved the term and the image!

There is so much great content to listen to. I sometimes feel like my little dogs with their short legs trying to keep up with me as I try to keep up with my two favorite podcasts – This Week in Health IT and In the Bubble. Yes, I subscribe to many more, but these are the top two that I keep up with best I can.

This Week in Health IT is three different weekly shows (each approximately 45 minutes long) – Newsday (Monday), Solution Showcase (Wednesday), and Influencers (Friday). And starting this year Bill Russell decided his audience could benefit from another option so he launched a daily news show on a separate channel – Today in Health IT (shorter at 8-10 minutes each).

I agreed to be one of the rotating co-hosts on Newsday this year. My second episode with Bill was this week – Newsday – Drive-Thru Vaccine Distribution, Reaching the Marginalized, and CIO Priorities. The first topic we covered was the UC Health Mass Vaccination Playbook – a comprehensive resource that is worth downloading. Even if you are already doing similar mass vaccine sites, I am sure there is something to learn from their playbook to refine and improve your own operation. Best practice sharing is what we do in healthcare! Check out the podcast to hear all the stories we discussed.

So that’s my plug for the best podcast series to keep up with what’s happening in health IT.

Turning to my other top podcast, In the Bubble. This is how I stay educated on COVID-19 and all things related. Continue reading →

Vaccine rollout – it takes a village, part 3

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Let’s start with the big picture and some good news. There are downward trends in the key COVID-19 indicators – the number of new COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. But we know there is no good news in 3,000 deaths per day and nearly 500,000 deaths since the pandemic started a year ago.

In terms of the vaccine, there is good news at a macro level. According to the Bloomberg COVID tracker, 48 million doses have been given in the U.S. with an average of 1.62 million doses administered per day, 14.6 doses have been administered for every 100 people, and 70% of the shots delivered to states have been administered. (as of 2/11/21 at 6:25PM)

There are more examples of mass vaccination sites with thousands being vaccinated in a single day at stadiums around the country. UC Health in Denver is offering a playbook for mass vaccination sites to other health systems – best practice sharing is something we do very well in healthcare.

Dr. Anthony Fauci projects that by sometime in April, the vaccine will be available to anyone who wants it. That seems very optimistic considering many states are just now in mid-February beginning to vaccinate anyone over age 75. President Biden says there will be enough vaccine supply to vaccinate 300 million in the U.S. by the end of summer.

Access issues continue with a lot of confusion and frustration for those in qualified groups trying to make appointments either online or by phone.  It has become a family affair for many as younger family members try to help their elders figure out how to get vaccine appointments when there are multiple channels possible in their state or city and multiple different websites to go to. I applaud the various initiatives of software engineers in Massachusetts and New York who based on their own frustrating family experiences created a way for people to check availability of vaccine appointments. But we should not have to rely on such solutions. I would expect our government agencies to have made it simpler to begin with.

I just learned of another tool that notifies people via text message when there are leftover doses in their zip code so no dose goes to waste – Vaccination Standby  List. According to the website, their mission is  “to reduce COVID vaccine waste, reduce unnecessary lines and crowds at stores, reduce misinformation of leftovers, and allow as many people as possible to take advantage of any leftover doses”.

Disparities in vaccine distribution are real. We need more examples like the one in South Los Angeles where Dr. Jerry P. Abraham and the Kedren Community Health Center set up a walk-in site described in the Los Angeles Times article by Erika D. Smith on January 29, “Column: How a South L.A. doctor is beating the system and distributing vaccines equitably”. In Dr. Abraham’s interview on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on February 5, he said that he and his team are extremely solutions oriented and recognized that people with no car, no Internet access, and no email needed a workaround. Continue reading →

Vaccine rollout – it takes a village, part 2

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Last week’s blog post on vaccine rollout took longer than expected to write as I compiled multiple resources and articles to comment on and share. With the vaccine rollout as massive an undertaking as it is and so many stories (good and bad), I decided to do part 2 this week highlighting best practices, technology challenges, and health disparities.

Best Practices

Last week, I mentioned Atrium Health and their local partnership to do mass vaccination events. It was encouraging to see their update on vaccinating over 20,000 people had a special emphasis on underserved communities.  We need more focus on underserved communities – more on that in a bit.

Another health system doing drive thru vaccination clinics at scale is Memorial Hermann in the Houston area. They are getting calls from health systems across the U.S. asking for guidance on how to design similar large-scale vaccination events and are more than willing to share their blueprint for others to replicate according to Binita Patel, Vice President of Pharmacy Services for Memorial Hermann Health System. The location (NRG Park) and staffing (700 people including many volunteers) were key to their success.

We cannot forget that there are many people leery of the vaccine, sometimes referred to as “vaccine hesitancy”. Education and public health messaging campaigns will be key as the vaccine rollout continues over the next several months. Based on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor report, there are key messages that resonate with people. They are listed in this short article from Becker’s Health IT : “8 most convincing messages to promote COVID-19 vaccines”.

Many health IT vendors pivoted their products and services to support COVID-19 over the past year. Vaccine scheduling is the latest focus area for vendors like Kyruus which shared best practices and insights from their customers in their recent blog: “Eight Best Practices for COVID-19 Vaccine Scheduling Online: Insights From Our Health System Customers”. A great transition to the next topic.

Technology Challenges

I mentioned the Vaccine Access Management System (VAMS) in my post last week as a system provided by CDC to states and other organizations for pre-screening, registration, scheduling and tracking. Not surprisingly, a software solution developed quickly and made available for many different but similar situations and workflows has experienced problems as captured in this article from MIT Technology Review. I would hope the problems can be resolved so organizations using it do not have to switch systems midstream with vaccine rollout already in process and moving rapidly. Continue reading →

8 health experts to follow

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In past years, I’ve used the end of the year mark as a way to highlight my most read blogs of the year and encourage you to check them out if you missed them. But who cares about my most read blogs? Instead, I want to amplify the voices of health experts who have educated us throughout this pandemic and who will continue to for many months to come. If you aren’t already following them on social media or listening to their podcasts, I encourage you to do so. They are often interviewed on the major news programs.

Trusting the science, knowing the facts, and maintaining objectivity are critical for all of us to do our part and get safely to the other side of this pandemic.

Here are the experts I recommend you follow in alphabetical order:

Esther Choo, MD, MPH, Co-Founder, Equity Quotient, is an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. She has been speaking from the front lines of the pandemic since the beginning. She did a podcast series called Doctors’s Log – A Covid-19 Journal in the early months of the pandemic. Twitter: @choo_ek

Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize winning science journalist and author of several books including “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance” and “Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health”. In 2007, she did a TED talk “Lessons from the 1918 Flu”.  Twitter: @Laurie_Garrett

Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, is an internationally respected expert on pandemic response and preparedness. He recently left his position as faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and became dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.  His recent interview on In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt, “The Next Three Stages of COVID-19”, is worth checking out. And as I just learned, he also has his own podcast series, “COVID: What Comes Next”. He is a frequent contributor on all the major news outlets. Twitter: @ashishkjha

Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, has been nominated as the next U.S. Surgeon General, a role he also served in during the Obama Administration.  He is the co-chair of the Biden COVID Task Force. His recent interview on in the Bubble with Andy Slavitt, “Inside the Biden COVID Task Force”, is worth checking out. Twitter: @vivek_murthy

Michael Osterholm, MS, MPH, PhD, is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota and is a world-renowned epidemiologist who has spent his career investigating outbreaks. He is a member of the Biden COVID Task Force. Continue reading →