Still need the COVID-19 vaccine? Your doctor's office might offer it.

Gina DiPietro 0:06
When the COVID-19 vaccine first became available to the public, thousands of people rolled up their sleeves at Novant Health mass vaccination sites. Now, with greater supply of the vaccine and more flexibility, Novant Health patients have an opportunity to receive their vaccine at their medical home. You're listening to Novant Health Healthy Headlines, I'm Gina DiPietro. In this episode, John Howard, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Novant Health Physician Network, explains the shift away from mass vaccination sites and into Novant Health primary care and pediatric care clinics. Thank you for listening.

John Howard 0:45
What we've seen in our mass vaccination sites is even with walking appointments is very low utilization relative to the cavernous space we have there. In the amount of inventory, we have a vaccine. In other words, the demand for the vaccine has dwindled, and it dwindled quickly. We really sort of hit a wall. And we recognize that in our communities for any number of reasons that vaccine hesitancy or vaccine reluctance was now the order of the day. Our transition to address that is to say, how do we work more closely with individual folks who are trying to overcome either questions or concerns, or maybe they've heard things that aren't exactly true about the efficacy or the safety of the vaccines. And we believe that the best place for that to take place is in a patient's medical home, our final pivot has been to move away from the vaccination sites, and now to be able to provide those vaccines and primary care clinics, Family Medicine clinics, internal medicine, clinics, and even our pediatric clinics for those who are eligible because it's not all kids yet, but it is adolescence, and to make sure that patients have the opportunity to talk with their physicians and the comfort of their medical home, in the comfort of that relationship between a patient and his or her provider to say, let me understand this, let me really understand why I should do this or what my issues might be, or if I have particular questions, I have a space a safe space to have those answers. And we believe now with vaccine hesitancy being the order of the day, that is the best way for us to serve our communities and make the vaccine available to people is connecting them back with their physicians or their family practitioners or their nurse practitioners who are available in their clinics.

Gina DiPietro 2:45
As Hohn just mentioned, bringing the vaccine into clinics where it's administered by a trusted physician is a new opportunity to reach unvaccinated people. Dr. David Priest, Novant Health chief safety quality and Epidemiology officer, explains the impact he's seen firsthand.

Dr. David Priest 3:03
It's that personal touch that really makes a difference. And I've seen that in my own practice. Individuals come in adamantly opposed to vaccination, and after addressing each of their concerns, they're willing to get it. There's so much information and misinformation that's been moved around the internet, you know, some patients just throw up their hands and say, I don't know what to believe and all this. That one on one conversation addressing concerns would provide a really makes a world of difference.

Gina DiPietro 3:25
Gina here and back to my conversation with John Howard, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Novant. Health Physician Network. He said the end goal is to have the COVID-19 vaccine available in most if not all Novant Health Primary Care adult and pediatric care clinics by the end of the year.

John Howard 3:43
So I think that creates a great opportunity to reach out into communities into local neighborhoods where we have clinics and say, Hey, here's a place where this is available. And we think it allows for an encounter that is more engaged with a patient's health, then all of the community sites where you could go to a Walgreens or CVS, not that those aren't very valuable resources as well. But you can't have the same dialogue, because that's not when your provider,

Gina DiPietro 4:12
We've heard a lot about the variants that people are starting to notice. And we've also heard a lot about how people just aren't quite sure how long the efficacy lasts. What would be the implications from shifting more to this clinic model and distributing COVID vaccines. If a booster shot might be needed, I imagine that it would make it easier to distribute those?

John Howard 4:37
The good news is is that the vaccines that we have available, still tend to be effective against the current variants in the marketplace. And the highest incidence of those variants are current and states and counties which have the lowest vaccination rates. So it's a good even common sense indicator and beyond. All the epidemiological studies that you can simply look at a map and see where that's occurring. The bad news portion is that as long as the virus has the ability to replicate, it has the ability to mutate, which means that the current Delta variant, for example, will very likely not be the last variant unless we take away the opportunity for the virus to continue to spread. And the way to do that is to encourage more vaccinations. Which brings me to the second part of your question is, when we think about boosters, long term efficacy, keeping the vaccine down, because in many ways, this really is a battle. It's a battle for the safety of our communities against a virus that has disrupted our lives in significant ways that there is not a person that hasn't felt this. It's sometimes very deep, and long lasting or permanent levels, even losing loved ones. So the way to fight that battle, is to make sure that we're creating this as a normal part of what we deal with mass vaccination sites in huge events and stadiums, or at arena's, which we certainly did, to accelerate that initial bush is not the way for us to continue to combat it. So whether it's been booster shots, or whether it's getting more people who have not yet received the vaccine to receive it, the best way to do that is to make that a part of our ordinary health care delivery. And so I do think the retail outlets such as Walgreens and CVS are valuable. But I also think the physician office is a valuable resource. And it's why we put so much effort in making sure we have clinics enrolled, and that we have physicians and other providers are willing to help us in delivering the vaccine. And when the boosters are needed, as we're still gaining evidence on what the what really the link of efficacy is for these vaccines, that we have the ability then to provide booster shots as needed, when that time comes and when it's appropriate. But we're not there yet. And I do want to make that clear. Boosters are not being recommended or delivered at this time.

Gina DiPietro 7:10
Yes, certainly an important distinction there. And really, it just speaks to COVID taught us that we never really know what might happen. So to have different options where people can get vaccines is really important, because we may not be able to predict what happens next.

John Howard 7:27
And that's exactly right. And to add to your point there, it's important to understand that as boosters become available, and as we need to do that Novant Health is fully prepared and at the ready to reactivate some mass sites, we need to if it's important, and there's a window to do that in, we're going to meet the needs of our community. We're going to make sure we're empowered to appropriately battle this virus and to make sure that we're successful, I think everyone today is enjoying the opening up again of our lives. And we need to make sure that we keep the virus on a teils so t...