WATCH: UPMC update on COVID-19 vaccine distribution – WTAE Pittsburgh

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those were vaccinated to date have seen the typical side effects sore arms, some fatigue, muscle aches. But this is a safe and effective vaccine. In addition to vaccinating our own staff and many nursing home residents, our teams have worked around the clock since the New Year’s holiday weekend, and we have built a system to share vaccines with our non UPMC frontline healthcare workers in our communities. Even before the state required health systems to allocate 10% of their vaccines, UPMC had already vaccinated thousands of of GMS and non employed health care workers who care for our patients in our hospitals. As of this morning, that represents 2300 individuals who have been vaccinated. We have very aggressive region by region plans launching this week to share vaccines with additional E. M s, police fire and other key frontline personnel. We’re prioritizing non UPMC frontline healthcare workers who serve under resourced communities so that this this limited vaccine can make the biggest impact in those areas. UPMC has proven to be a very effective distributor of the Koven 19 vaccines. As we complete the vaccination of our staff are nursing home residents, we look forward to a closer partnership with the state and county officials to make sure that on a region by region basis, we can offer vaccination to as many people as possible. Dr. David Nace is now going to update you on another vulnerable population. Residents of skilled nursing facilities who we’ve been vaccinating. David. Thank you, Tammy. I’m gonna briefly update you on three of our long term care efforts. With regards to vaccinations, we started administering the modern A vaccine to employees and residents of UPMC senior communities on December 29th. As of Monday this week, we’ve been minister just over 1300 vaccines to roughly 830 of our health care workers and about 475 of our long term care residents. It’s about half of our skilled nursing facility residents. So far, we provided vaccines to 17 out of the 27 skilled nursing personal care and assisted living facilities through our long term care pharmacy and similar to the exceptionally high acceptance rates that we’ve seen in our hospital population. About 75 to 80% of our nursing home staff and residents who have been offered the vaccine and have been eligible have replied to the vaccination beyond our own facilities As of December 31st, UPMC is part of the, uh, regional congregate care assistant. Teams are cat er. Cat Team replaces the federally supported Regional Response Health Collaborative, or RICK program, which ended in December. The state program, Our Cat, continues the leverage, the expertise of certain health systems, uh, to help long term care facilities throughout the Commonwealth that are struggling with covert 19 outbreaks through our cat. UPMC is leading efforts to make sure healthcare workers and residents in facilities regionally are safe and support it. In addition to the vaccinations and to our care leadership, UPMC has also begun to administer a promising covert 19 therapy in our facilities monoclonal antibodies that others air struggling to administer to vulnerable populations across the country. Dr. Donald really will now tell you more about that on other efforts to condone improving our clinical care. Thank you, Dr Niece, as Dr Nee said, vaccines are not the only tool in our arsenal. We’ve been highly effective in making monoclonal antibodies available to the right patients at the right time, and that’s before they’re sick enough to need hospital care these medications are ivy infusions. They’re produced by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, and they’re currently available under an emergency use authorization. They’re used in non hospitalized people who are vulnerable to the complications of Cove in 19 illness and infection. If given early in their illness, this medication can help keep these people out of the hospital. And unlike some of the stumbles that we’ve seen in other medical centers around the country, UPMC is delivering its doses through, ah, highly coordinated system thio each patient who qualifies, even bringing I v infusions of the medication to the patient. In addition to using safe and accessible in fusion centers, all of this is an effort to keep them from ever needing hospitalization and to help people recover. UPMC continues research on its own improved version of antibody therapy, one that may aid not only co vid 19 care but could be a future model for infections at the other extreme, with the very sickest of the cove in 19 patients, those who are requiring or heading thio, requiring ah breathing machine for assistance. We continue to learn from our clinical experience and add to the knowledge by doing groundbreaking research The data that we’ve gathered, particularly over the past three months, helps us counsel patients and their families as they choose care. The death rate in the hospital for co vid 19 patients who are 70 years or older and who require a breathing machine that is, people who are so ill that they failed all other support approaches is very high at 75%. This is consistent with what we hear from our colleagues around the country. We know this and were active in trying to do the best care to avoid that particular set of circumstances. But given the very large numbers of people infected, we have sadly seen Maurin Hospital deaths. Let me just emphasize fewer and fewer people proportionately end up needing breathing machines. I share this not to cause fear but to help the families of patients understand that when you reach that point, they understand what the prognosis is for recovery and make the best decisions compared to the spring. Overall, Covad 19 outcomes are improved, likely because standardization around evidence based care, including the use of steroids and other medications that helped change the immune response pioneered here through the novel UPMC remap adaptive platform trials that we’ve discussed before. The proportion of patients seen in our emergency departments who are admitted for hospital care fell by 25% compared to this spring, and the percentage of covert patients who were started on a breathing machine also dropped by 10%. The death rate for people who were never placed on a breathing machine for Cove in 19 illness is 9%. That’s in sharp contrast to the 65% death rate in the hospital. For those who require a breathing machine, these observations air not only consistent across all of our UPMC sites, but with other sites around the country. So overall, in a relative sense, the outcomes are improved and our good news. But we still have the pandemic here with us and in high numbers. I don’t share these numbers to downplay anything. Cove in 19 poses very serious risks for many people, especially the elderly and those with underlying conditions. Any of our frontline nurses, doctors and other clinicians will tell you this disease is deadly. While we have a vaccine, it is in limited supply right now, and we’re currently targeting healthcare workers and those in skill care facilities. Our public health and governmental partners are still working through directions and plans for use of the vaccine and the general public right now, the most effective. A way for you to protect yourself and to protect others is toe wear a mask that covers your nose and your mouth to practice physical distancing and avoid congregations outside of your immediate family and to use rigorous hand washing. These simple steps are your vaccine. We know these work, and these are the measures that work. Thank you all. And now we’ll take questions from the media, all of whom are joining us remotely online. To ask a question, you’ll have to go to the participants icon at the bottom of the page and press the raise your hand button that will put you in the queue. I will read your name, and your line will be a new muted for you to ask your question. Please be sure. Toe on, mute the microphone on your end. We will try to call and on his many different media outlets as we can in the time that we have a lot. First question I have is be mailed to me. Um, I Tammy Don, this is probably for both of you. Why has UPMC even able todo to distribute vaccine vaccines seemingly much more quickly than than others? And how can UPMC helps speed up the distribution to the entire communities that we serve? Well, that’s a great question. S o I thank you for asking it. You know, as as we mentioned, we have been rolling this out across the state and all of our regions. Really? For the last four weeks and, as always, our incredible workforce of individuals and are amazing I t infrastructure have allowed us to expedite and leverage those systems to smoothly and effectively get the job done. We are leaders in each of those spaces, along with having built some amazing operational processes and are really positioned, I think beautifully Thio keep moving faster. We are ready. Thio work through the rest of the, uh, populations that are out there. And I feel very confident that we can get the job done through that. Don, what would you add? I think one of the other things that UPMC does very well is learn from doing. We told you at a previous press conference that we use the influenza vaccinations season in the fall toe. Learn how to more quickly deliver vaccines, and we use that learning to begin the process with Cove in 19 Vaccinations Cove in 19 vaccinations have been with us less than a full month and each day and each week we get much more efficient and we can do more people quickly and safely. We will continue that activity as vaccination begins to move away from just healthcare workers into others. Okay, next question comes from Paul Gough of Pittsburgh, Business Times. Paul, please go ahead. Hi. Thanks to all of you for taking the time. Um, the Trump and the Biden administrations have just announced that they’re going to distribute all the vaccines immediately, not reserving a second dose. And then also, I think even prioritizing people over 65 it’s sort of late breaking news. Can you tell me how that will impact both UPMC s effort and also the overall vaccine effort? Well, Paul, thanks for such a great question. Also, um, we are frankly thrilled and very supportive to hear of the decision at a federal level to see vaccine distribution accelerated. Uh, We do believe that we have the systems and processes in place to take that vaccine and get it in the arms of the right patients and the right people in our community. So we are anxious to learn Mawr. This was an announcement just prior, as I understand to us being in the press conference right now, but stand ready to receive and stand ready to move forward, andare very confident that we can continue to be a leader in assuring our communities are as protected as possible from the the vaccine that we have in front of us. Any additional comments any of my colleagues want Thio Paula’s you know UPMC for weeks to months now has been an active dialogue with the government, both the Commonwealth and the federal government trying to get his much vaccine as possible. Recognizing the important contribution, we look forward to having even more opportunity. Given this late breaking news, we can get vaccination into people’s arms. Once we get the vaccine to us, we recognize that it will be a partnership. Our intellectual abilities are people are delivery approaches together with what’s available in the region from other providers and from the government. This is a big undertaking. This is the D Day of vaccination. We’re trying to get tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people vaccinated and is going to take smarts and cooperation. We stand ready to do that. Next question. Chandi Chapman, W t a TV Chandi, please go ahead. Thank you. Um, I was wondering what type of training goes behind administering the vaccine If a person doesn’t have any type of background and health care, what type of people are administering these vaccines? In that case, second part to my question, are you distributing the vaccine to municipalities for central workers like police and fire? I remember in the beginning, you mentioned briefly about police and fire. So the the state has provided some ongoing guidance about who’s able to provide an injection and and that has, uh, been opened up. We greatly appreciate that Teoh allowing pharmacy students and nursing students who have had the appropriate training to do that. So just about many of our employees on the front line are capable of providing injections, and we’ve been very fortunate. So many people want to volunteer and help to make this happen so I am very appreciative of the additional, Uh, will say lightning of the rules to make this a little more expeditious. The the second part of your question, um is that actually administering this vaccine requires ah, high degree of coordination. Uh, particularly starting with the sub zero storage requirements that many, many of our municipalities and our local communities settings and are frankly are. Physician offices do not have access to that. In addition, the infrastructure requirements of reporting who the vaccine has gone to our quite large, as you would guess so we have not disseminated any vaccine, too. Other providers in the region we are actually providing it to them ourselves through our own infrastructure through our own teams to make sure that we know it’s done safely and well and will continue to do that and accelerate that across the regions as were provided more vaccine. Next question. Sarah Boden, ESA FM. Sarah, please go ahead. Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question. Eso Based on reporting by myself and my colleagues, UPMC, to its credit, is fascinating staff at like everyone all staff at hospitals, it doesn’t matter the role, which really makes sense from an infection prevention standpoint. My, I’m also hearing from multiple sources that employees that UPMC who do not work within medical facilities, some of whom work from home, have been doing so. So started the pandemic are getting vaccinated as well. I’m talking about people in departments like fundraising, communications, insurance services as well as admin who work remotely. So my question is when? As Tammy, many er noted, the vaccine is so limited. Why is UPMC inoculating these individuals since they arguably do not fall into the one a category? So again, another great question so early on the guidance and direction that we’ve been provided by the state and the federal officials were focused on vaccinating employees within health systems and hospitals. And if you were to take the approach that we’ve taken with the prioritization and look at many other organizations across the United States and here in Pennsylvania, you we are following those same guidelines and feel very confident that that we are meeting the intent of all of those regulations. We have been fortunate, uh, to have some of our our sites through the distribution process, uh, receive analogy ation that has allowed us to work through our prioritization groups, and we will continue to do that as we now begin to more aggressively vaccinate folks that are outside of UPMC in the one a category. Don, would you want to add anything on that? Yeah, I think it’s important to point out we’re trying to serve a couple of goals here. One is toe. Make sure that key health care workers there immunized as quickly as possible so that anyone who needs care can continue tohave that care. And secondly, to make sure that we’re a part of a much broader vaccination process, we prioritize. We schedule. We plan, but we make sure we do not ever failed to use as optimally as possible vaccine. That’s ready. So in a given narrow period of time when we vaccinated people at the highest level, we take the next priority group. The people you’re talking about are not folks who would never get a vaccine and would never be considered even in one of the other earlier phases. There in a prioritization sequence and we want to maximize our efficiency. We think this means not only the guidelines by the Commonwealth, but good, common, practical sense. Next question. Danny Fitzgerald, Beaver County Times. Danny, please go ahead. Great. Thank you so much. Question for Dr Yearly Going back to the monoclonal. Um, antibodies. I know you’ve went over this many different times, but just to clarify again, since the ideas is, you know, Thio administer these so that people don’t have thio end up getting severe care and a severe a case of covert 19. Can you just reiterate, um, you know, if someone work Thio think they have cove in, Maybe they don’t have a severe cases. It’s something they can go to their doctor about. Is this something that they have to get diagnosed with? Cove it And then through the process, they can receive these antibodies Or how does that process work? That’s a great question. And thanks for asking it. Monoclonal antibodies are intended for people who have symptoms of co vid have a clear positive test, and we use the PCR test. We’ve talked about the two different types of tests that are available the better test, and they also haven’t been sick for an extended period of time and generally fall into a couple categories either based on your age or your overall weight. Those are the people who benefit the most from monoclonal antibody therapy. There’s some other categories. Also, the first step is to see your doctor, your health care provider, whether it’s a physician assistant or a c R N p, and be diagnosed with Cove in 19 and next is for them to request monoclonal antibody therapy. We’re lucky enough here in western Pennsylvania that we have enough supply that we haven’t had to use any other means of distribution like a lottery yet, although we have that available, we want people to be able to benefit from this. So the key things are right. People early enough in their disease and diagnosed. We’ve given over 330 courses of therapy right now, much more than not only anyone in the region but many other similar areas around the country and just toe. Add to that we’ve used monoclonal antibodies in our long term care facilities. We actually go out whenever there’s a case within a facility or an outbreak within a facility, and we try to identify those individuals that would meet those criteria and push that therapy forward for them so that they have it available. So it’s active case seeking to make sure we get it to the right individuals. Great. Next question. Mark. Gosh, Gary in of spectrum news in Buffalo, New York. Mark, please Go ahead, Mark, please. On mute on your end. You hear me? We can hear you now. Okay, great. Yeah. I also wanted to follow up on that a little bit, too. And you just answered my question about the antibodies, but working and covering UPMC should taqwa in Jamestown. Um, Dr Yearly, Uh, doctor, Really? How significant is this testing for rural areas, especially in Chicago County, Jamestown, where you do have, uh, that older population and more rural areas. How significant is that? Is that to these folks? And why? Well, testing is important, particularly if you’re thinking about some of these very specific interventions. Monoclonal antibodies. One of the things were most proud of is how UPMC Shack Taco has been able to meet the testing capabilities with the highest level of testing available through the help of our central laboratory facilities. We’re able to diagnose it quickly and then get people on the right pathway, whether it’s hospitalization, monoclonal antibody therapy, or just observation. So I think you’re right. I think it’s true in almost any location, whether we’re talking rural or very urban, that testing promptly with a good test that performs well, it matters a lot. Okay, next question. Mick, stay Nellie from the Pittsburgh Post. Because that Mick, please Go ahead, Mick, please. On mute on your end. Sorry, I went a little early there. In addition, Thio the federal government saying they’re ready to move forward with other people to vaccinate like older people, people with underlying conditions. You know, yesterday, Dr Levin said that they expected to move to phase one B soon. Not really. Any specifics, but she said soon, a couple of times I was just wondering, if you can see is prepared to distribute to those groups of people. Um, is there enough vaccine available to start giving it to all those people without, you know, shorting the staff? Uh, we we are absolutely prepared. Thio administer those vaccines. What we need is the vaccine. So the secretary, in sharing that announcement, which was tremendous, uh, we are looking forward to additional information from our state offices on when we may receive on have that vaccine in hand. And as soon as we do, we will be ready to go forward in vaccinating those additional individuals in that one. Be grouping. Next question from Grace Griffith 10 at W p M T T v. In York, Pennsylvania. Grace, please go ahead. Hi, Pie pie pie. Okay, uh, try that again. Grace way. Uh, some of them had reported, uh, you know, just having to drive. Ah, little bit to get the vaccine, like some some providers over over an hour. Just wondering, um, if that has, if that situation has improved it all. And then if this was something that you guys were aware of, Can you restate that very quickly, Grace that you were breaking up? Grace, please restate your question. You were breaking up. Let’s go to the next, uh, person. Meghan Gaza, the Tribune Review and Grace, please. Uh, please try to get back in. We’ll try to get back to you. Uh, Meghan, please go ahead. Hi. Thanks so much for taking the time today. This this was talkto a little bit about earlier. I just wanted to see I know UPMC has a really robust volunteer program. I wanted to see where, uh, you know, the unpaid volunteers are in line in terms of the vaccine, particularly those who are still working within the hospitals. You know, directing people, checking temperatures, that type of thing. So we included are unpaid volunteers that were at the bedside with our other one a group. Individuals. Uh, and so they have been appropriately prioritized with our staff and providing care. Uh, vaccinated. Thank you. Next question. Nicole Brambilla from the Lancaster on time online. I’m sorry, Nicole. Please, go ahead. Thank you so much for taking my question. I have do that related, and it’s a it’s a follow up toe press a little bit more on a question. Somebody else asked previously when specifically, did you start vaccine, 80 non frontline workers. And why, given how scarce the vaccine is, Tim, you just said you know you’re prepared to vaccinate, but what you need is the vaccine. If you’re vaccinating people who are in billing or who are, um, in other jobs that wouldn’t even come in contact, um they’re working remotely and such. Why vaccinate those and not save it to those that have really dire and Dr Nature and I spoke about this earlier about the nursing homes and those that are 75 older. That’s a That’s a great question, and one that continues, as you know across the United States, to prompt a lot of dialogue. So one of the things that we learned early on is that you really can’t categorize a group of employees just by job title. You actually have to understand their work. Um, and Thio exemplify that I’d like Thio. I’d like to give you an example of a nightie employees so folks would immediately look at a nightie employees and say, Well, they don’t They don’t interact with patients that that’s not true. I T employees at UPMC are present throughout our hospitals. They interact with our clinicians side by side, placing our clinicians at risk and are equivalent contributors to the health care community. Health care communities are more than just the individuals, and so we, through our guidance with state and our own internal prioritization and our expert group, I feel very confident that we’ve made the right decisions and how we’ve prioritized folks, and I think that’s you know what we see in long term care is also very similar. Uh, every single person that works in a long term care environment contacts a patient at some point, whether your maintenance dietary housekeeping or the person that’s a receptionist or a nurse. So every single person and that what we look at in terms of the prioritization of those individuals is the degree of that contact. But every single person meets a patient at some point in our long term care facilities. I think one other thing that needs to be emphasized is the goal of the vaccine was not to make the work environment safer because that person was vaccinated. It really is to begin the process number one of ensuring the health care system can continue to provide most people who are health care workers who haven’t exposure or develop illness. It happened outside of the clinical setting, not inside the clinical setting, and so therefore, making sure that we vaccinated people who are health care workers in whatever priority are is an important goal to make sure the system still works for everyone. We think that we kept people very well protected for the past 10 months, given our plans and our PPE We’ve had virtually very few people develop any symptoms or positive cove it illness and no one who has been a health care worker who required intensive care because of infection that they got in clinical work. I think that’s a common misconception about why the vaccination rollout started. It’s to make sure that initially the entire health care workforce still can do the things that are important. Okay, let’s try Grace Griffith 10 again at W PMT TV in York. Grace, Let’s try you again. All right, fingers crossed. This works. Can you hear me? So far, so good. Okay, um, I had I had done a few stories with some of those providers you you guys had mentioned earlier. Those not affiliated providers. Um, who had said that when they went to get the vaccines, they were just having difficulty finding close locations, like some of them saying they had to drive, you know, over an hour. And I was just wondering if that is something that has been refined or an issue that you guys were aware of. And, um, just how it will go moving forward. So we absolutely have done our very best to minimize the amount of travel that individuals have to do. Thio get the vaccine. There were a couple locations added in the last few weeks in our Harrisburg region to be able to provide that accommodation going forward. And so I think we’ve addressed it. Another thing that’s important to point out is the two vaccines that are available now in particular the Pfizer vaccine, really require special handling and equipment, which is going to make it difficult to be in lots of different settings. We look forward to some of the newer vaccines that are still being evaluated. That may offer a lot of operational benefit when we begin to roll out vaccination to more and more of the population. Okay, next question. Maria. Okay, Next question. Maria Sim Brocade, ca Maria, please Go ahead. Maria, please turn off on mute your microphone. Good morning. Hi. I have a question about particular groups within your staffs. For instance, Uh, people who have had Kobe 19 already and pregnant and lactating women. What is your advice to these particular groups or any other particular groups within staff? Uh, thanks, Dr Simba. We follow the guidance that’s available nationally, So people who have completely recovered from Cove in 19. Illness and infection are candidates for vaccination therapy. We have that dialogue with them about whether or not they would like Toa have that, uh, same is true of pregnant women. That’s actually one of the important changes that Cove in 19 has helped bring into not only the research field but the actual implementation field here to fore. Most women who were pregnant were excluded from not only any research but implementation of new therapies, even though they likely could benefit very much. We offer that usually a dialogue between the patient and her physician, and we make that available to them. So we we do not force that. But we follow the guidance, and we think that it’s a very wise way to approach this with regards to our long term care facility. Patients who have had covert 19, um, or our staff who have covert 19. We do try to delay the vaccine during this initial phase, as we first got vaccine simply because there weren’t enough doses. Initially on the thought is that individuals who have had covert 19 we know are protected up to 90 days at least and our goal is to start vaccinating to get everybody immune that we can. So we start with those who have no immunity. And then we go back to those individuals who have had covert 19 as the vaccine supply increases in our long term care facilities that we can capture everybody so all those individuals will be included on. But it will be a phased in approach over time. Okay, next question. Ryan. Eldridge, wh PTV in Harrisburg. Ryan, please. Go ahead. Hello, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. What I wanted to ask was, I’m currently working with the state. They have cited some inconsistencies with the federal government in particular Operation warp speed when it comes to the cost associated with the distribution and administration of the vaccine. And then also, um they say that they get numbers for how much they’ll be allotted on a week to week basis. And sometimes that shifts. They either get Maura or they get less. Can you talk about how those inconsistencies ultimately affect you, PNC and maybe others in the region? Uh, absolutely. We have not really delved into any of the cost figures associated with the administration of the vaccine. Our priority has been protecting our communities and our employees. So I really can’t comment on that piece. May be one of my colleagues can, but the distribution from a week to week basis has been something that has been variable. But what we have done is Aziz, like many states, sites across the state is we actually are in active daily dialogue with our colleagues at the state level and really work hard to confirm and understand what we’re going to be delivered. And then we are scheduling our clinics for administration of that is based on that activity. So I think everyone’s been working hard and done a very good job to try toe, smooth out the process over the last several weeks and look forward to seeing even more of the vaccine coming forward soon, as we’ve seen in our long term care facilities just in terms of our request for vaccine each week, uh, it’s always uncertain whether we’ll get that full amount or not, and so far we’ve been very lucky on that. But it has been that we do our vaccination schedule on a on an almost daily basis, planning out based on the number of doses of vaccines Which facilities will go to next and that has had an impact on us having thio kind of change our vaccination schedule for facilities. But so far, we’ve been able to manage this quite well on the vaccine supply. Looks like it is coming in consistently for us at this time. Okay? And our last question goes toe Liz Reid, SFM. Liz, please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Um, an online form for healthcare workers, Non non UPMC uh, health care workers was launched last week. I have a two part question about that. How is UPMC connecting with this group beforehand? And, um, what kind of turnaround can people expect to get an appointment after filling out the form? Excellent question. And we were very excited to launch through the UPMC dot com website, an avenue for non affiliated health care providers in the in the group one A and eventually other groups to be able to submit their request that, uh, those requests have been coming in over the last several days. And we are, uh, have completed an internal prioritization associated with that and are looking to later this week begin the vaccination of some of those individuals. The timing of when to expect that is going to be just very dependent on the same subject, which is as much as I could get my hands on some vaccine. Right. We, uh we will be working closely with the state, uh, Thio obtain as much vaccine as we can for all of these individuals to be able to get them scheduled as expeditiously as possible. I think one of the silver linings that’s important to point out here is that in our part of the country here in our region, there’s, ah high enthusiasm not only with healthcare workers but others to get the vaccine. That’s not a set of conditions that exists everywhere else. New York and Los Angeles report much lower rates of acceptance of the vaccine. Think that’s a fabulous thing you’re hearing about the forearms? Because people, health care workers and others are very interested in the vaccine. We will address the logistic issues about that, but I think it bodes well for our community, and UPMC wants to be part off that solution and get us all vaccinated as quickly and as efficiently as possible.