Penn State Health CEO Steve Massini sent the following email to Penn State Health and College of Medicine employees today.
Dear Colleagues,
You may have heard that the PA Department of Health recently expanded vaccine eligibility – previously limited to the state’s health care workforce and Pennsylvanians living in long-term care facilities – to now include members of the general public age 65 and older, and those ages 16-64 with high-risk health conditions.
I know many of you are wondering when our patients and loved ones who fall into this category will be offered the vaccine. The short answer is, we haven’t yet received enough vaccines to schedule many of these appointments – but as soon as we can, we will. We have been working with our providers to identify eligible patients who are most at risk for getting seriously ill if they contract COVID-19 and vaccinating those patients as we can.
As new vaccine deliveries arrive, Penn State Health will contact patients via text message, phone call or email to invite them to schedule their vaccination. We are asking people not to call our hospitals or outpatient sites directly at this time, but to watch our vaccine web site for updates. We hope to soon offer an online registration option, again, once vaccine supply allows us to do that.
I’m pleased to tell you that within our organization, as of last night, nearly 70% of our workforce, students, volunteers and contractors have been vaccinated. We’ve also vaccinated more than 900 community health workers and emergency services personnel. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this herculean effort.
I know that many of you still have questions about the development, safety and effectiveness of the vaccine for yourself or your loved ones. To help answer your questions so that you can make an informed decision about vaccination, physicians from Penn State Health and our College of Medicine will be on hand during a special vaccine education town hall at noon Wednesday. You can find the information to join here. And, you can submit questions ahead of time here.
Additionally, while we await the arrival of more vaccines, we have identified five locations across the central and southeastern Pennsylvania, including State College, where we plan to administer vaccines to patients and the public. We hope to announce our plans for those locations in the coming week.
Please remember that even if you have been vaccinated, it’s still important to continue to wear a mask, wash your hands frequently and social distance. Research shows the vaccine is 95% effective in keeping people from getting COVID-19, but it hasn’t been proven to stop us from spreading the virus to others.
Keep doing the great work you are doing!
Steve Massini
CEO
Penn State Health