Baptist Health vaccine scheduling confusion leads to mass public sign up
The roughly 6,000 people who signed up online for a COVID-19 vaccine over the weekend through Baptist Health can keep their appointments, a hospital spokeswoman said, even though many don’t yet qualify for a dose under the state’s distribution plan.
“If you are scheduled for a vaccine, we want you to come and get it. We don’t want you to call and cancel,” Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Baptist, said Saturday evening.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services on Friday published a map of 33 sites around the state where health care personnel can get a vaccine. Baptist Health is one of only a few that provided an online scheduling link; most other hospitals hadn’t publicly provided a way to sign up online, or they’re requiring those appointments be made by phone. Those hospitals that did provide online scheduling, including Norton Healthcare in Louisville and the Pikeville Medical Center, explicitly stated only health care workers in phase 1A could sign up.
Though the Baptist Health link itself was accessible through a page on the state’s website that makes clear vaccines are reserved “for health care personnel,” the scheduling page itself did not initially make the specification.
This omission triggered confusion and then excitement as the scheduling link began circulating Friday evening and Saturday among people who viewed it as an opportunity for anyone to sign up. Appointments were available through early February at Baptist Health locations in Lexington, Louisville, Madisonville and Corbin. All are now full.
“Many who viewed the site mistakenly thought the vaccinations were open to the general public,” Childers said. “We regret the confusion this has caused our communities.”
The scheduling page has since been updated, and clearly states at the top, “Phase 1A is meant for health care personnel employed in the state of Kentucky . . . if you meet the certain criteria, you may schedule an appointment.”
Close to 6,000 appointments were scheduled over at least the next two weeks. And even though many of those are people aren’t in group 1A — it’s not clear exactly how many — “we’re honoring those appointments,” Childers said, adding that there is no shortage of vaccines for health care workers. The hospital system began immunizations in mid December, and more vaccine appointments will be added in the coming weeks. Childers asked for “the community’s help to ensure these vaccinations reach our health care personnel first.”
Kentucky is still in the early phases of its Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine distribution. Residents and staff at long-term care facilities, health care staff, first responders, K-12 personnel and people over the age of 70 are currently the only people who are eligible for a vaccine, or who will have access to a dose in the near future. As of Friday, 107,799 doses had been administered statewide, roughly 47,000 of which were given last week. At Baptist Health Lexington, 2,295 health care personnel have received at least one dose. The state expects to complete long-term care and health care inoculations by the end of January.
State officials have asked providers to administer at least 90 percent of their doses within a week of receiving them as a way to speed up the roll out. Sticking to the tiered distribution system will continue to be a priority, Kentucky’s health commissioner said last week, but so will “getting it out as fast as possible to as many people willing to have it,” Dr. Steven Stack said, even if it means veering from that tiered system at times.
This thinking seems to have played a part in Baptist’s decision not to ask for mass appointment cancellations. Inoculating 6,000 or so people across state regions “will go a long way in advancing our goal to vaccinate and protect our communities,” Childers said. “We share [the] excitement over the vaccine availability and the promise it brings.”
