GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Local healthcare systems are filling appointments quickly as Wisconsin’s COVID-19 distribution heads towards Phase 1B..starting with individuals 65-years and older.
If providers already have vaccines, they could start with people 65 and over already this past Wednesday.
“We are obviously seeing a lot of interest and excitement around getting scheduled for vaccinations,” said Bellin Health COO Sharla Baenen. “We are definitely scheduling a number of vaccines for next week. We’ve also, because we have some vaccine on hand, been able to schedule a few folks for this week already.”
“All of us were approved to do 65 and older, not 1B, but 65 and older if we had vaccines,” said Prevea Health CEO Dr. Ashok Rai. “A good amount of people booked for Friday and Saturday are 65 and older.”
Both healthcare systems have vaccination clinics in the Green Bay area. Bellin is hosting theirs in Ashwaubenon, while Prevea built out a site at the Kress Events Center at UW-Green Bay.
Rai says they ramped things up slowly, but saw about 500 doses administered on Thursday.
“We have to run at 50-percent of our normal capacity for the first few weeks because eventually we have to do two shots. Everybody we’re seeing now is going to come back, plus we have to do everybody new. So you can’t open up all of our capacity in the first 3 weeks because that,” Rai told WTAQ News. “Going very smooth. Patients seem to be liking it, and we’re not having any delays there which we were hoping to avoid. So that’s good…The more people that come through and the more vaccine we get, the better it gets. Because you just get this constant flow.”
Bellin Health is working to book everyone who is newly eligible and wants a vaccine. But with 700,000 people statewide in that age range, it’s not always the quickest process.
“Initially, because there’s so many people trying to get through and get scheduled, the process is a little bit slower right now. I think that will ease with some of the changes we’ve made to our system and as more people obviously get through and get scheduled,” Baenen said. “We are, at this point, managing our capacity for appointments next week based on what we have from an inventory of vaccine perspective…Be patient. Don’t give up. Please keep reaching out to get your vaccination scheduled and we will get you scheduled.”
“Opening up to 700,000 people is a daunting task. That’s how many people are in the 65 and older in Wisconsin, and we want to get through it as quickly as possible,” Rai said.
Both say they’re heavily dependent on their vaccine inventory when it comes to setting up appointments. And it’s hard to schedule someone to be vaccinated without enough available doses.
But there is some optimism for a bump in inventory to help scale up and speed up the process.
“The rate-limiting stuff really isn’t us. It’s vaccine from the federal government. It’s not the state by any means,” Rai explained. “What you don’t want to do is keep stacking groups on top of that we have without a guarantee of more and more doses coming in from the feds, which we don’t have yet. But hopefully in the next day or two we’ll find out…There’s just not enough vaccine available to us right now we have to do this in some sort of organized manner to protect society.”
He adds that there needs to be some form of methodology, and that people need to follow that methodology for it to actually work.
“Protect health care workers to protect the patients, and then you protect the patients that are most at risk next, which is 65 and older. Then you start walking into populations that maybe you’re a little younger but still at risk, such as educators or grocery store workers,” Rai said.
It still remains unclear exactly when Phase 1B will be launched, or which groups will be included. Monday is being floated as a potential start date, but until the Department of Health Services confirms it – nobody really knows.
As for the general public, healthcare professionals are once again asking for patience.
“Hard to say exactly when that will happen. I think it will be dependent on how quickly we’re able to get the 65-plus group through that process, along with more essential workers that we anticipate will be coming out by next week,” Baenen said. “A lot of that will be dependent on vaccine inventory and all of our ability to scale up and provide those vaccinations…It is so important for folks to get vaccinated in order for us to get to a level of immunity in the community.”
Bellin Health has been up-scaling their online scheduling processes and phone capacities to improve speed. People can either call in or log into their MyBellinHealth.org portal to set up a time.
For Prevea patients, head to Prevea.com/Vaccine for more information.
Comments