AHN begins vaccinating its employees
Allegheny Health Network, one of the region’s largest medical systems, has started inoculating its healthcare workers with the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Several hundred workers have been vaccinated across the network since a soft launch Thursday. The first priority workers are those who care for COVID-19 patients in the intensive care units, as well as anybody who works within 6 feet of COVID-19 patients for more than 15 minutes, AHN officials said at a newsconference Friday.
After that, employees who work with patients who do not have COVID-19 will receive the vaccine,
before moving on to other personnel and ambulatory care workers. The health care system, which consists of 13 hospitals, anticipates it will have all priority workers inoculated by the week of Jan. 4, with all employees potentially vaccinated by the beginning of February.
AHN officials said the vaccination program not only protects the people who are at highest risk of catching the virus, but it also helps to stabilize the workforce so they can continue to treat patients.
“They live in the community, they’re in the community when they’re not at work, they’re not wearing their [personal protective equipment] when they’re out in the community and their risk is real,” said the network’s Chief Quality Learning Officer, Dr. Brian Parker
While the doctors emphasized the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, they also urged members of the public to remain vigilant, as the virus continues to spread at the worst rate since the pandemic began.
“This is not the time to get pandemic fatigue, meaning this is not the time to let your guard down,” Dr. Parker said. The arrival of the vaccines doesn’t mean people should stop mitigation measures like social distancing, avoiding large and small gatherings and wearing masks, they said.
The hospital system has been operating under an increasedsurge plan as COVID19 patients increased after
the summer, but they are still accepting patients for surgeriesand other procedures.
“We continue a very strict PPE policy and coming to the hospital is really a very safe thing to do,” said Dr. Donald M. Whiting, chief medical officer and a neurosurgeon for AHN. “A lot of the exposure that we’re seeing is community-acquired exposure, not hospital-acquired exposure.”
Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, AHN’s chief clinical diversity and inclusion officer, emphasized the need for people of color to acquire the vaccine.
“We have 400 years of history of oppression in this country,” Dr. Larkins-Pettigrew, who is Black, said. “We
know that. We have embraced that and acknowledged that. This is our tipping point. COVID-19 is killing — we see it every single day — many, many members of the African-American community.”
Dr. Larkins-Pettigrew said she and her husband also participated in the trial for the vaccine before it received emergency authorization.
“We did that because we understand that we have to trust the science. We are part of the African-American community who lived through and know what has happened tous in this country.”
With another vaccine from Moderna expected to receive emergency authorization
from the Food and Drug Administration soon, and others from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson possibly arriving in early 2021, critical workers outside of hospitals may begin to receive the vaccine in the early months of next year, Dr. Parkersaid.
Reading a text she received from one of the hospital workers who participated in vaccine distribution, Chief Nurse Executive Claire Zangerle said: “This is the first day most of us will drive home without crying all the way. Last night it was a different cry,one of hope and joy.”