AdventHealth in the Orlando region has asked the state for more coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate 35,000 to 40,000 extremely vulnerable patients.
Neil Finkler, chief medical officer of Acute Care Services with AdventHealth, says once the hospital receives the doses, the next group that will get shots are cancer patients in active treatment.
Finkler says these patients and their families will receive an email to register for the shots on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We are actually reaching out to our physicians out in the community through the end of this week to also notify them that if they have patients that they believe to be exceedingly vulnerable to please let us know, and please provide us with emails so that we can make sure that they’re included in that email invite as well.”
Finkler says the hospital system vaccinated about 500 patients on Tuesday - most of whom had received transplants.
He says if the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines are approved for emergency use in the United States, this will only increase supply to meet the demand in high-risk patients.
“These would include things like people with lung disease, COPD, those that may have cystic fibrosis, people with sickle cell disease," Finkler says. "There’s certain movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, for example, that may benefit from this as well because of the therapy that they’re on.”
The hospital system has vaccinated more than 37,000 people.
Copyright 2021 WMFE. To see more, visit WMFE.
