MERIDIAN, Idaho — Saint Alphonsus opened a mass vaccination clinic at the former Gordmans location at the Village in Meridian and organizers say things have been running smoothly. The clinic intends to reduce confusion and inconvenience as patients try to get their COVID-19 vaccine.
Regional Chief Nursing Officer and VP of Operations for Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center Jennifer Misajet says, so far, things have been working out well at the location.
“I think that what this space has allowed us to do, until our vaccine supply increases and we really ramp up, is to maintain a very efficient workflow,” Misajet said.
The 50,000 square foot space sees up to 1,000 people in a day. The new location provides better parking and a streamlined vaccine process that Saint Alphonsus says will be able to keep up when more doses arrive in Idaho.
"As the vaccine supply increases, we know that we will be able to do that in the same way and just scale our volumes,” Misajet said.
Since Saint Alphonsus is administering booster doses, they have lanes set up to ensure people get the same brand they received the first round.
“We have to have a Pfizer lane, and then we have a Moderna lane just to be one more safety check and make sure the booster they get matches their initial vaccine,” Misajet said.
Saint Alphonsus says they are looking at ways to grow vaccination efforts and target vaccinating some more vulnerable populations in the future.
"We are exploring some ideas around a mobile vaccination clinic as well as some patient clinics at our medical group clinics for some of the most fragile patients that might have trouble getting into a high throughput vaccination center,” Misajet said.
The health system says they plan on keeping this site up and running as long as the demand for vaccines is there. To see data regarding how many doses Saint Alphonsus has administered so far, click here.
