Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | Janaury 25, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 9 require a lot of organizations to roll up their sleeves," said Dr. Robert Schreiber, a vice president at Worcester-based Fallon Health and medical director of its Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE, a program hit directly by the pandemic because of the disproportionate nature of how older people are affected. More broadly than in Worcester, Shreiber said, vaccination efforts have to consider all segments of the population, including those who may be home- bound or have health complications. Even a single vaccination center has a lot of workforce, distribution and scheduling factors to consider. en there's the educational component: Demonstrating the vaccines, which were developed with unprecedented speed, are safe. "In a perfect world, this would be all figured out," Shreiber said. "But this is an undertaking that no one has had to imagine." Worcester's Senior Center is one of 19 locations statewide where such large- scale vaccination efforts are taking place, along with Southbridge Community Center, HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster, and Marlborough Hospital. "is is a great model," Hirsh said, "but I doubt you'll ever find one with as much spirit and enthusiasm as here." If it's up to the UMass Medical School chancellor, the students that help make Massachusetts vaccinations Massachusetts began vaccinating healthcare workers in December, and began including first responders including police officers and firefighters in mid-January. A look at weekly data for how many vaccines were distributed statewide and in Worcester County, and how many vaccines have been given: Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Doses administered across Massachusetts 35,618 78,643 141,108 239,174 Doses distributed across Massachusetts 146,675 285,050 328,000 347,450 Doses distributed in Worcester County 15,975 30,200 33,600 35,200 Dec. 24 Dec. 31 Jan. 7 Jan. 14 Recently funded Commercial Real Estate $15,000,000 Industrial Building Auburn, MA Member FDIC/Member DIF Brennan Campbell VP, Commercial Banking Officer brennan.campbell@unibank.com 508.849.4275 Contact a UniBank Business Lender today. Banking beyond business as usual. Worcester's efforts stand out will be replicated at least statewide. Collins, with UMass President Marty Meehan, has advocated for what they've called a COVID-19 Vaccine Corps, something that could mobilize medical and nursing students everywhere to quickly get vaccines to those who need them. Even others with no medical training could be relatively quickly taught how to safely give the vaccine, Collins said. Students or others could also help with logistics or other planning aspects that don't involve giving injections. Collins said he looked at healthcare workers and saw a group of people tired from fighting the pandemic for most of the past year. But students generally haven't had the same workload in hospitals, and have shown a desire to pitch in, he said. He compared it to efforts by volunteers to staff polling places on Election Day. "To burden the people who've been doing this for the past nine months, it just seemed ambitious," Collins said. ose helping to run the Worcester vaccination program are willing to share what they've learned with other medical or nursing schools in the state that might want to do something similar. "We'd all be willing to share our best practices on how this went," Terrien said. Student-led staffing for vaccinations in Worcester is part of a broader plan pitched by UMass leaders. W

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