In an effort to provide clear, transparent communication with our community, Los Alamos Medical Center would like to clarify the strategic struggles of planning, executing and administering the COVID-19 vaccine.

All of our initial vaccination efforts were placed on vaccinating our healthcare providers and first responders, ensuring they remained healthy enough to continue providing medical care to our community.

Since completing our vaccination efforts toward our frontline workers Feb. 1, we have turned our efforts into planning a cohesive vaccination effort for our community members.

Some of the difficulties and barriers to this effort include:

Determining a space effective for providing vaccinations in the most efficient way, while maintaining the safety of the community, our patients and our employees.
Each week we are unsure when the COVID-19 vaccines will arrive at our facility. We do not have certainty until they actually arrive.
The vaccine must be drawn into a syringe carefully and precisely by our Pharmacy Technician in order to obtain the full 6 doses per vial (which is not always possible). This is also dependent upon which vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) is delivered to us.
The amount of vaccines that we schedule must be divisible by 6 if we receive Pfizer and 10 if we receive Moderna.
We have exactly 5 days to administer the Pfizer vaccine from the time of arrival at our facility or 30 days for the Moderna vaccine.
Once the vaccine is drawn up into a syringe, we have 6 hours to administer it.
Staffing availability necessary to administer and run a vaccination clinic is entirely dependent upon our hospital census – the more patients that we have in our ICU or ER directly effects the amount of nurses that are available to administer the vaccine. This is unpredictable day to day.
We wish that this process was as “simple” as our annual flu vaccination effort we provide for the community, but there are many variables at play with the COVID-19 vaccine. None of these are excuses, simply barriers we have had to navigate thoroughly in order to execute a successful and safe vaccination effort.

We are excited to announce that we are now able to offer COVID-19 vaccinations two days a week, starting next Wednesday.

NOTE: Unfortunately, we will not be able to take walk-ins at this time, as all vaccination appointments need to be scheduled through the New Mexico Department of Health website at: https://cvvaccine.nmhealth.org/

NOTE: All scheduled vaccinations will take place on the ground floor of Los Alamos Medical Center. We ask the community to please park in the back parking lot and enter the facility through the ground floor entrance near the cafeteria. Please do not use the Main Entrance of the facility as we would like to avoid congestion and delays to our patients seeking medical care.

We would like to thank the community of Los Alamos for their support and their efforts in keeping us safe through this pandemic. I believe that I speak for each provider and employee at Los Alamos Medical Center, along with our Vaccination Team, and our Executive Team, in promising you that we are committed to providing quality care, making our community healthier and fighting this pandemic alongside of you.

By JENNIFER KING

Director of Quality & Patient Safety Officer

LifePoint Health

Los Alamos Medical Center