Attend a Healthcare Virtual Think Tank Session

The Logistics of Healing: Challenges and Considerations for Vaccine Deployment

→ February 23rd, 2021, 10:00 AM EDT

The early stages of vaccine distribution have been plagued by massive logistical challenges, resource shortfalls, and general confusion from the federal level to individual facilities. Providers are at the front-line of this unprecedented challenge and many are struggling to deploy sufficient resources in accordance with demand. Further, while guidelines for distribution are largely set by the states, leadership must still adapt these into clear, consistent operational protocols at the local and regional level. This requires extensive communication with staff regarding who is eligible, and under what circumstances, to avoid confusion and pushback. Preemptively identifying potential administrative, behavioral, or logistical barriers is critical, but compressed time frames and overburdened staff make this extraordinarily difficult.

This Virtual Session will examine the following:

• Many Providers have failed to administer the vaccines they’ve received owing to a lack of coordination with state authorities and severe staffing shortfalls – to what extent have you experienced this, or alternatively, worked to ensure it doesn’t become an issue?

• What are the logistical, operational, and administrative challenges to smooth vaccine access and rollout within your network or facilities at this stage, and what do you see as the core threats to a successful deployment moving forward?

• With early indications that the incoming administration will break with the former’s rollout plan in favor of more rapid initial dosage, what are the potential implications, both at the national level and for your state or region?

• To what extent do you anticipate the human, behavioral element constituting a barrier to success, in terms of potential for mistakes and inefficiency, or simply in terms of resistance? What protocols have you established to manage any recalcitrance on the part of your staff?

• What do you believe we will be looking back on at the end of the year? Will vaccine distribution be seen as a successful initiative or as a series of stops and starts undermined not least of all by the myriad impacts of COVID-19 itself?