BayCare To Begin Vaccinating Vulnerable Patients Under 65

TAMPA BAY, FL — BayCare Health System has begun vaccinating medically vulnerable individuals 64 and under across West Central Florida.

Due to the limited number of vaccines available, BayCare’s efforts will use a clinically defined process to focus on individuals deemed most vulnerable to complications or death should they contract the coronavirus.

“We all wish that there was more vaccine currently available and that everyone who wanted a vaccine could just call for an appointment,” said Tommy Inzina, president and CEO of BayCare. “But until there is more availability, BayCare is using its clinical judgement to identify outpatients who are among our region’s most vulnerable individuals.”

Criteria for the term “medically vulnerable” established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is broad while vaccine supply remains incredibly limited. BayCare has received just 1,000 vaccine doses so far for the medically vulnerable, even though millions across the region would fit into the CDC’s medically vulnerable definition.

BayCare assembled a multidisciplinary team of clinical leaders to determine how to prioritze the medically vulnerable. The group scrutinized the list of CDC criteria and narrowed it to those conditions that most greatly reduce a patient’s immune systems and make them the most vulnerable to serious illness or death from the coronavirus.

The team agreed to first focus vaccine efforts on those patients who have at least two or more of the defined medical conditions. As more vaccine supply is available, BayCare anticipates its outreach will broaden to patients with just one of the conditions.

Courtesy Baycare

BayCare, with 15 hospitals and other operations across Pinellas, Hillsborough, Polk and Pasco counties, has provided medical care for about a third of the population of those counties.

It is the database of those medical visits that is being searched to identify initial recipients of vaccines for the medically vulnerable. Those patients will be contacted by BayCare to schedule a vaccination appointment on a rolling basis depending on the vaccine supply.

There is no need for patients to call their doctors’ offices. Vaccines reserved for the medically vulnerable will not be distributed on demand but only through this clinically defined process.

Since starting in late December, BayCare has administered a total of 41,000 first and second doses to its health care workers, other health care workers in the community and patients 65 and older patients.

For more information, visit the Baycare Coronavirus Resource Center.

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