SALT LAKE CITY – Officials at the Utah Department of Health announced on Monday that the agency is turning to three major health care providers to help expand COVID-19 vaccination in the state starting this week, in anticipation of a jump in the assigned vaccines.
Intermountain Healthcare, Nomi Health, and University of Utah Health will all help vaccinate Utahns under the agreement with the state. All three said on Monday that they had already set up operations and planned to expand operations in the coming weeks before the state’s weekly allocation of vaccines is expected to be more than double the weekly totals from previous weeks.
“These partners will expand our reach across the state. They will be able to provide large-scale vaccination clinics in some areas where we currently cannot,” said Tom Hudachko, spokesman for the Utah Department of Health. “They’ve built relationships with many state residents who have underlying medical conditions, so we’ll rely on them to help with those populations.”
Additional vaccine distribution
According to the state health department, about 10% of the total state population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. The partnerships announced Monday will not replace the existing vaccine rollout locations announced by local health departments or at various pharmacies across the state.
Monday’s announcement was made because the first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would arrive in Utah this week. The Utah Department of Health expects 122,000 total first and second vaccine doses to arrive this week, adding doses from the new drug manufacturer.
The local health departments together can vaccinate just over 120,000 people per week, Hudachko said. That’s currently a mix of people getting their first or second dose of the vaccine. The weekly allotment is now at that maximum.
With many more vaccine doses coming this month, state health department leaders knew they needed to expand vaccination services. That’s why they sought the help of health care providers, especially since all three likely already cared for those ages 16 to 65 in Utah with pre-existing health problems who recently became eligible for the vaccine.
“We always planned to activate extra once we exceeded the capacity of the local health departments to administer vaccines,” said Hudachko.
Officials from all three health care providers revealed their plans for the vaccination on Monday.
Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain announced seven locations where Utahns eligible for the vaccine can schedule a vaccination appointment. They are:
- Logan Regional Hospital (500 E. 1400 North)
- McKay-Dee Hospital (4401 S. Harrison Blvd. in Ogden)
- Park City Hospital (900 Round Valley Drive)
- Riverton Hospital (3741 W. 12600 South)
- George Regional Medical Center (1380 E. Medical Center Drive)
- The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH) (5848 S. 300 East in Murray)
- Utah Valley Hospital (1034 N.500 West in Provo)
All seven locations will offer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week, said Dr. Kristin Dascomb, medical director of infection prevention for employee health at Intermountain Healthcare. Utah Valley Hospital will also provide the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.
“We try to distribute as much as possible,” she said.
Anyone eligible for the vaccine can make an appointment through the Intermountain website. Anyone with questions is encouraged to call 887-777-7061.
Nomi Health
Nomi Health reached an agreement with Larry H. Miller Group to run vaccination clinics at Megaplex Theaters in parts of Utah.
Their clinics are active and include Megaplex locations in:
- Lehi, Utah County: 2935 N. Thanksgiving Way
- 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
Dr. June Steely, Nomi Health’s medical director, said the organization plans to add a location in Centerville starting Thursday and more locations closer to Logan next week. Potential new locations are possible later for places in southern Utah.
“Some of them take the observation period in the theater itself, and others are more in the lobby or in a ballroom,” she said.
Nomi Health also has the ability to operate “pop-up clinics” with the capacity to distribute 250 vaccines per day through that method, she said. Those locations will be determined through agreements with the county’s health departments.
Nomi currently has the capacity to vaccinate as many as 2,000 Utahns per day or 12,000 per week. Steely said the organization is working to expand that number in the coming weeks.
Utahns eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine can register to get one from Nomi Health through a webpage set up by the state. Anyone who needs help registering online can call 801-704-5911, Steely added.
U. of Utah Health
University of Utah Health can currently vaccinate people in two locations:
- University of Utah Hospital on the university campus in Salt Lake City
- Redwood Health Center at 1525 W. 2100 South in Salt Lake City
The organization plans to expand locations to health centers in Farmington, South Jordan and Sugar House next week, according to Dr. Richard Orlandi, chief medical officer at Ambulatory Health at the University of Utah.
He said the provider has gotten 2,340 for this week; that number is expected to jump to 5,340 next week before “continuing to ramp up” distribution in the weeks that follow.
“I think many of us in this partnership have more capacity than what we are currently receiving,” he added. “That’s true for the state in general. We consume everything we get as a state.”
Anyone who qualifies for the vaccine based on medical records must have received an invitation to make an appointment in their MyChart account. The health care provider also tried to distribute invitations via email, text messages and phone calls, Orlandi said.
‘One-stop-shop’
State officials said they had set up a “one-stop-shop” website with all kinds of information about the vaccine, including links to where Utahns eligible for the vaccine can apply to receive it.
Thirteen local health departments and nine different pharmacies have already provided vaccinations before the three announced new partners Monday. All partners are allowed to use systems they are comfortable with rather than having a unified plan that everyone should adopt, Hudachko said.
“There may be some confusion as there is no single source, but we don’t think this outweighs the efficiency achieved by allowing these systems to use their existing registration sites,” he said.
An increase in the supply
The state learns every Tuesday what their upcoming allotments will be; The state health department expects their allotment of premium Moderna vaccines to double as early as next week and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines “more than doubled” as both drug manufacturers have increased their offerings, Hudachko said.
Hudachko explained that the state’s weekly vaccination allocation is based on the proportion of the adult population compared to other states in the country. Utah’s overall younger population is the reason why the state still gets few vaccines compared to other places in the US.
For example, the NPR’s COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker Monday ranked Utah 49th in the country in the total vaccinated population, even though it was ninth in the US in terms of percentage of vaccine used. States with higher adult populations will receive more vaccine doses.
“The federal government takes a state’s share of the total US adult population and assigns a vaccine to the state on that basis,” Hudachko said. “In Utah, we have about 0.84% of the total US adult population … so Utah receives about 0.84% that is available nationally.”
Once received, the doses will be distributed among the local health departments in a similar manner. Provinces with more adults receive more vaccine doses. It is broken down to an even smaller scale to determine how many vaccines a supplier will receive to administer.
The recent increase has little to do with the state’s eligibility for people with health problems that lead to a higher risk of serious COVID-19 infections.
“Pfizer and Moderna are really ramping up their production,” said Hudachko.
This sudden increase has meant that vaccination services had to be expanded sooner.