As health workers are thinly stretched to respond to record numbers of coronavirus hospitalizations, jurisdictions are scrambling to find extra hands with the skills to help get shots in the arms.
A report released by the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Governors Association in December cites 20 states considering recruiting non-traditional providers, including students, dentists, veterinarians and paramedics.
On Monday, the California Department of Consumer Affairs approved an emergency waiver allowing dentists to administer Covid-19 vaccines. The move came as Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, announced the state’s plans to aggressively accelerate the vaccination rate.
The American Dental Association says dentists should not give the vaccine in multiple states, including Oregon, where the first U.S. dentist to administer a Covid-19 vaccine did last month.
“Dentists have already been trained to give injections into objectively more complex parts of the mouth, which usually have gag reflexes, large blood vessels, nerves and a moving tongue,” the California Dental Association said in a statement.
Some health systems use a well of newly trained students to help their vaccination.
“This is going to be a team of really smart and educated young people who are going to be our immunizers,” Susan Mashni, vice president and chief pharmacist of Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, said in December.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham usually enlists nursing students to help with annual flu vaccinations. For the implementation of Covid-19, they also utilized medical and dental students.
“We use some atypical vaccines because we prefer to keep our licensed nurses in bed,” said Dr. Sarah Nafziger, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, said. “As we roll out the vaccine, we are simultaneously dealing with a surge of the patient.”
A “Beautiful thing to look at”
The university has even recruited public health students, who cannot shoot but have the knowledge to help manage vaccination sites.
“There’s a lot of logistics involved if you have a vaccine that processes more than 1,000 people a day, so it was really a community effort here on our campus,” Nafziger said. “It was a beautiful thing to look at.”
Nafziger said most student vaccinations at UAB are not paid. Like many people who give vaccinations all over the country, they are running out of time.
New Jersey is appealing to its citizens to join the state’s medical reserve corps, a network of health care volunteers utilized for vaccinations. The state is looking for especially retired health workers, who have the skills to administer vaccines and do not actively care for patients.
“There are a lot of retired doctors who stand up to act as vaccinators,” New Jersey State Commissioner for Health Judy Persichelli told a news conference on Wednesday.
There is a bit of red tape involved in recruiting inents. They need to be trained – a process of about two hours – and not everyone who has the skills to administer Covid-19 vaccines is authorized to do so.
Dr. William Reynolds, president of the American Optometric Association, says optometry is an untapped resource in the vaccination effort.
The association says 19 states allow optometrists to administer drugs via injection – and in California they can administer flu and shingles vaccines – but are not authorized to give the Covid-19 vaccine specifically.
Reynolds noted that optometrists are widespread and ready to step in to help smaller and rural communities in need.
“We are in smaller communities as well as in cities,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of Americans live in a country with an optometrist. Ninety percent of the Medicare population lives within a 15-minute drive of an optometrist.”
He said there was little financial incentive for optometrists to help with the effort, but getting the population vaccinated as quickly as possible would help get their offices – and the country – back to normal.
“We want to be part of the solution,” Reynolds said.