Kaiser Permanente, Providence, Legacy Health and Oregon Health and Science University are pooling their doses and staff of COVID-19 to run a clinic in the Northeast Portland Conference Center.
The goal is to get the clinic up and running next week to serve Portland residents who are eligible to receive the vaccine.
The plan comes because Gov. Kate Brown said people over the age of 65 and teachers could get the vaccine from next Saturday, January 23rd.
According to hospital officials, one of the obstacles to providing vaccines to large groups of people at the site is adequate supplies. Wendy Watson, chief operating officer of Kaiser Permanente, said they were waiting for the larger vaccine supply the federal government had promised.
“Now how fast we increase it really depends on the vaccine supply,” Watson said. “This is probably the biggest limitation in all of this, how fast the vaccine doses flow to these mass vaccination sites.”
Watson said health systems are in the early stages of planning a similar site in southwest Washington.
This story will be updated.