SALT LAKE CITY – Utah Department of Health officials announced Monday that the agency will turn to three major health care providers to help expand the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in the state starting this week, before a jump of assigned vaccines.
Intermountain Healthcare, Nomi Health and the University of Utah Health will help vaccinate Utahns as agreed with the state. All three said on Monday that they already had operations in place and intended to expand operations in the coming weeks before the state’s weekly vaccine allocation is expected to exceed twice the previous weekly ones.
“These partners will increase our reach across the state. They will be able to offer large-scale vaccination clinics in some areas where we currently cannot do so,” said Tom Hudachko, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Health. “They have established relationships with many residents of the state who have underlying medical conditions, so we will rely on them to help with these populations.”
Additional distribution of vaccines
About 10 percent of the state’s total population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the state health department. Associations announced Monday will not replace existing vaccine deployment locations, such as those announced by local health departments or at various state pharmacies.
Monday’s announcement was made as the first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were expected to arrive in Utah this week. The Utah Department of Health expected 122,000 total doses of first and second vaccine to arrive this week, adding doses from the new drug maker.
Local health departments, combined, can vaccinate just over 120,000 people a week, Hudachko said. It is currently a mixture of people receiving the first or second dose of the vaccine. The weekly allocation is now maximum.
With many more doses of vaccine coming this month, state health department leaders knew they should expand vaccination services. That’s why they enlisted the help of health care providers, mostly because all three were probably already caring for Utahns ages 16 to 65 with pre-existing health conditions that were recently eligible to receive the vaccine.
“We always wanted to activate additional once the capacity of local health departments to administer vaccines was exceeded,” Hudachko said.
Officials from the three health care providers revealed their plans for the vaccination on Monday.
Intermountain health care
Intermountain announced seven sites where Utahns who meet the requirements to receive the vaccine can schedule an appointment to get vaccinated. They are:
- Logan Regional Hospital (500 E. 1400 North)
- McKay-Dee Hospital (4401 S. Harrison Blvd. to Ogden)
- Park City Hospital (900 Round Valley Drive)
- Riverton Hospital (3741 W. 12600 South)
- St. Louis Regional Medical Center George (1380 E. Medical Center Drive)
- The Specialized Orthopedic Hospital (TOSH) (5848 S. 300 East in Murray)
- Utah Valley Hospital (1034 N. 500 West in Provo)
The seven locations will offer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week, said Dr. Kristin Dascomb, medical director of infection prevention for the health of Intermountain Healthcare employees. Utah Valley Hospital will also provide the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“We want to distribute as much as possible,” he said.
Anyone eligible for the vaccine can make an appointment by going to the Intermountain website. It is recommended that anyone with questions call 887-777-7061.
Nomi Health
Nomi Health reached an agreement with the Larry H. Miller group to hold vaccination clinics at Megaplex theaters in different parts of Utah.
Its operating clinics include Megaplex locations in:
- Lehi, Utah County: 2935 N. Thanksgiving
- Vineyard, Utah County: 600 N. Mill Road
- West Valley City, Salt Lake County: 3601 S. 2400 West
- South Jordan, Salt Lake County: 3761 W. Parkway Plaza Drive
June Steely, medical director of Nomi Health, said the organization plans to add a location in Centerville starting Thursday and more locations closer to Logan next week. New locations for locations in southern Utah may be made possible later.
“Some of them observe the observation period in the theater itself and others, more in the lobby or the ballroom,” he said.
Nomi Health also has the ability to hold “emerging clinics” with the ability to distribute 250 vaccines a day using this method, he said. These locations will be determined through agreements with county health departments.
Currently, Nomi has the capacity to vaccinate up to 2,000 Utahns a day or 12,000 each week. Steely said the organization is working to expand that number in the coming weeks.
Utahns who meet the requirements for the COVID-19 vaccine can register to obtain one from Nomi Health through a state-created website. Anyone who needs help registering online can call 801-704-5911, Steely added.
U. Health Utah
Currently, the University of Utah Health can vaccinate people in two places:
- University of Utah Hospital on the Salt Lake City University campus
- Redwood Health Center at 1525 W. 2100 south of Salt Lake City
The organization plans to expand locations to Farmington, South Jordan and Sugar House health centers next week, according to Dr. Richard Orlandi, chief physician of outpatient health at the University of Utah.
He said the supplier received 2,340 for this week; that number is expected to rise to 5,340 next week before distribution “continues to increase” in subsequent weeks.
“I think many of us in this partnership have additional capacity beyond what we are currently receiving,” he added. “That’s true for the state as a whole. We’re consuming everything we get as a state.”
Anyone who meets the requirements to receive the vaccine based on medical records should have received an invitation to set up an appointment in their MyChart account. Orlandi said the health care provider was also trying to extend invitations by email, text messages and phone calls.
‘One stop shop’
State officials said they created a “one-stop shop” website dedicated to all sorts of information about the vaccine, including links to where Utahns who meet the requirements to receive it can register.
Thirteen local health departments and nine different retail pharmacies already provided vaccines before the three new midwives announced Monday. Hudachko has allowed all partners to use systems they know instead of having a uniform plan that everyone should adopt.
“There will be some potential confusion as there is no single source, but we believe it is outweighed by the efficiency that is gained by allowing these systems to use their existing log sites,” he said.
An increase in supply
The state finds out every Tuesday what its next awards will be; the state health department expects to see its allocation of Modern vaccines first doubled as early as next week and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines “more than double” because the two drug manufacturers have increased their supply, Hudachko said.
Hudachko explained that the state’s weekly vaccine allocation is based on its proportion of adult population compared to other states in the country. The younger general population of Utah is why the state remains low in the number of vaccines administered compared to other places in the US
For example, NPR’s COVID-19 vaccine tracker ranked Utah on Monday as the country’s number 49 in total vaccinated population, although it was ninth in the United States in terms of percentage of vaccines used. States with higher adult populations receive more doses of vaccine.
“The federal takes a state’s share of the total U.S. adult population and allocates the vaccine to the state based on that,” Hudachko said. “In Utah, we have about 0.84% of the total adult population in the U.S. … so Utah gets about 0.84% that are available nationwide.”
Once received, doses are distributed to local health departments in a similar way. Counties with more adults receive more doses of vaccine. It is broken down even on a smaller scale to determine how many vaccines a provider will receive to administer.
The recent increase has little to do with the fact that the state has opened eligibility to people with health conditions that carry higher risks of severe COVID-19 infections.
“Pfizer and Moderna are really increasing their production,” Hudachko said.
This sudden increase is what caused the need to expand vaccination services sooner.