Dakota begin vaccine rollout and what other states can learn

• North Dakota and South Dakota are two of the states doing the best job distributing coronavirus vaccines.
• Despite an uneven rollout nationwide, they excelled with centralized storage and vaccination sites.
• Flexibility and collaboration between health systems have been key to transporting around 80% of the vaccines delivered in arms.
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North Dakota and South Dakota are among the US states that are doing the best job of deploying coronavirus vaccines, and their experience could provide valuable lessons as the rest of the country struggles to catch up.

North Dakota administered 87% of the vaccines it received and South Dakota used 77%, according to the latest immunization data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The lackluster vaccination campaign in the United States has meant that nationally just over half of the vaccine doses delivered have actually been used.

From the start, the vaccine’s deployment in the United States has been beset by a lack of preparedness, little federal advice or assistance, and supply chain and logistics issues. President Joe Biden had pledged to review vaccine rollout by creating more federally-run vaccination sites and to increase vaccine supply by invoking the Defense Production Act.

In the United States, two major bottlenecks persisted in the early days of vaccine deployment, according to Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The vaccine supply was limited and unpredictable, and there was little advanced planning at vaccination sites, he said.

“They assumed it would be like an influenza vaccination campaign, but it turned out to be a lot more complicated due to vaccine handling and record keeping,” Schaffner said.

According to Jesse Breidenbach, executive director of pharmacy at Sanford Health, Dakota’s largest healthcare system, the region has excelled for two key reasons: flexibility and collaboration between public health departments and major healthcare providers. .

And like West Virginia, which chose not to participate in a federal partnership with CVS Health and Walgreens to vaccinate nursing home residents, the Dakota have largely foregone distribution through national companies, choosing to work with pharmacies and local partners.

It’s important to note that North Dakota and South Dakota have small populations and are served by a handful of health systems, making it easy to collaborate. For example, Sanford Health, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was able to send a fleet of 180 vans to get the Pfizer vaccine to rural healthcare workers in December, as Insider’s Shelby Livingston reported.

Sanford Health

U.S. patchwork deployment efforts have led to uneven immunization from state to state

National and local authorities across the country first wondered how to prioritize high-risk groups and essential workers, and worried that people were skipping the line to get vaccinated. Despite planning, setbacks abounded, leading to cases of wasted vaccines in California, largely unfounded fears of skipping the line in New York City, and Eventbrite-based vaccinations in Florida excluding the tech illiterate.

In recent weeks, more populous states like Florida and New York have begun to forgo stricter adherence to the CDC’s phased approach to deployment.

Read More: Here’s What You Need To Know About Joe Biden’s Plan To Get 100 Million Vaccines In 100 Days

Collaboration and communication between public and private health officials helped the Dakota “keep moving forward”

Collaboration has been easier in South Dakota’s early vaccination process because the state only has three major health systems, said Breidenbach of Sanford Health.

As one of the state’s three major healthcare systems along with Avera and Monument, Sanford has worked with the South Dakota State Department of Health on an ongoing basis.

“It’s through partnerships at the city level, and at the state level, we are able to cut red tape, I think much more effectively than a lot of states. We are getting there,” Dr. David Basel of Avera Health told Dakota News Now.

At the start of the vaccination effort, when South Dakota prioritized healthcare workers, Breidenbach said teams in each system were able to contact the state and let officials know who didn’t. not been vaccinated.

Centralized provider and patient information systems solved two-state deployment challenges

Although Sanford’s deployment efforts have differed in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, where the health care system is also functioning, Breidenbach said the North Dakota State Department of Health had was particularly clear in giving Sanford the information and the green light to “keep moving forward” on vaccinations. after frontline health workers have received their vaccine

According to a spokesperson for the North Dakota Department of Health, the state maintains a mailing list for all COVID vaccine vendors, keeping them apprised of incoming vaccine shipments. Vaccine suppliers receive weekly update emails.

Very different from patchwork distribution centers in larger states, North Dakota also has a single state warehouse to store and manage COVID vaccines. North Dakota has also been able to distribute vaccines to primary care providers and other smaller health care sites, not just hospitals and health systems, said Nicole Peske, director of communications.

Sanford Health’s Breidenbach also believes his electronic medical record has been helpful, as having patient information has helped Sanford identify and contact its high-risk patients for COVID-19 shots.

Where can the great states learn from the Dakota?

Breidenbach said he didn’t want to give advice to other healthcare systems because he didn’t know what challenges they were facing. At a higher level, however, it’s clear to him that the collaboration between major healthcare systems has been helpful, as well as the fact that healthcare systems like Sanford, for example, have information about patients.

“The more precision you get, the more it paralyzes things,” he added, probably referring to failed attempts in other states to implement federal guidelines. “We don’t want people to be out for half the day.”