AHN, UPMC to vaccinate 25,000 people at inpatient clinics

About 25,000 people will receive a vaccine covid-19 at various transit clinics throughout western Pennsylvania in the coming week.

Allegheny Health Network and UPMC, the two largest health systems in the region, on Wednesday announced partnerships with the Allegheny County Health Department to give Johnson & Johnson shots to the public.

AHN and the Department of Health will work together this Friday and Saturday to vaccinate 13,000 people in Phases 1A and 1B. This two-day clinic is being held at Next Tier Connect @ Pittsburgh East, an office building and campus near AHN’s Forbes Hospital in Monroeville.

The clinic will so far be the largest in the region providing the single & vaccine Johnson & Johnson.

Those interested in receiving the vaccine can visit AHN.org/coronavirus or call 412 DOCTORS to make an appointment.

“In the hope that we will be the final phase of our pandemic response, we are very pleased to work with the country to provide a large number of people in our community with access to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” said Dr. Imran Qadeer said. , medical officer of the Allegheny General Hospital and a leader of AHN’s vaccinated operations.

The clinic takes place in partnership with Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Pennsylvania National Guard.

Pittsburgh Mills Clinic Scheduled for April 14-15

Another 12,000 people will be vaccinated next week in a two-day transit clinic at the Pittsburgh Mills Mall in Frazer. The clinic plans to vaccinate up to 700 people every hour on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said. It is held in the vacant Sears Grand store.

The clinic will work like a crew: patients can drive to one of the 35 vaccination tents, where they will register, conduct a quick clinical examination and receive a dose.

The whole process takes two to three minutes, says Mark Sevco, president of UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Patients will then be directed to a nearby car park where they will park for 15 minutes for observation.

The clinic is hosted by UPMC and the Pittsburgh Penguins, in partnership with the Allegheny County Department of Health.

It will be the largest single-dose clinic the giant has offered in healthcare.

Sevco said UPMC and the Department of Health have committed to do another two weeks from the first clinic to administer another 12,000 doses in Pittsburgh Mills.

The clinic was made possible by 12,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson assigned to the Department of Health in Allegheny, which was confirmed only on Tuesday, the day before UPMC announced the clinic. Sevco said the two institutions have worked together to organize more large-scale vaccinations that can take place regularly so that the vaccines can be distributed faster and among most people.

“This is really the most important thing,” Sevco said. ‘It’s really a race of the vaccine against the variants, and we encourage everyone to sign up. Covid still exists, and we need to deploy the vaccine quickly. ”

“We are grateful to have received the vaccines,” Sevco added. “It’s in addition to the vaccines we get for all of our existing sites.”

UPMC opened its first transit clinic in Allegheny County at the Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry in March. The clinic was targeted at communities in northern Allegheny County and parts of Beaver and Butler.

But the clinic in Pittsburgh Mills is much larger, Sevco noted: while 500 first doses of Moderna were administered in a day at the Lemieux complex, 6,000 shots of Johnson & Johnson are given every day in the two-day clinic next week.

Sevco said UPMC has evaluated several potential locations for the larger clinic and found Pittsburgh Mills to be the best in terms of size, scope and availability of parking spaces. The location near Route 28 makes it easily accessible to a wider geographical population.

He said people were invited on UPMC waiting lists from seven provinces.

Pass-through clinics are becoming ‘best practice’ for massive dose administrations, Sevco said. It is more effective and time efficient, and is easier for patients with outpatient or mobility issues.

The announcement of the clinics coincides with the first week of Phase 1B in Pennsylvania which is eligible for vaccine, which includes first responders, people in community areas such as shelters and prisons and many other populations. By the time the clinic opens next week, phase 1C will also begin, which will be eligible for other “essential” workers.

Sevco said the clinic in the Pittsburgh Mills will be open to all of these phases next week – and the second clinic will be open to everyone two weeks later. All adults in Pennsylvania are eligible for vaccination on April 19th.

“We have access to this opportunity,” Sevco said. “The good news is that we now have 12,000 new patient appointments.”