From left: Jim Kennel, clinical pharmacy manager; Danene Sorace, Mayor, City of Lancaster; John DeJesus, lead pharmacy technician; Chelsea Cunningham, clinical pharmacist at a LG Health vaccine clinic.In the months leading up to emergency authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health began preparing for the vaccine's arrival and distribution to our employees and community. Matt Eberts, director of Pharmacy and IV Services, led his team of pharmacy managers and technicians and got to work. Their efforts included determining staffing needs, acquiring cold storage, and increasing supply of high-demand items such as needles and syringes.
“We treated the vaccine like a rare and precious resource by establishing tight and secure inventory controls,” said Kim Young, pharmacy manager. “We were even more challenged because we received two different manufacturers — vaccine products with slightly different storage and expiration guidelines.”
Each vial was initially said to contain five doses, but the pharmacy technicians were instrumental in extracting an additional vaccine dose out of as many Pfizer vials as possible. “There was a learning curve to the workflow, but through the determination of both nursing and pharmacy, we had very minimal vaccine waste," Young said.
“We gained the sixth dose from well over 90 percent of the vials,” Eberts added. “Because of our team’s efforts, we were able to vaccinate an additional 700 people.”
When asked how the pharmacy technician job is different now compared to before the pandemic began, John DeJesus, lead pharmacy technician, said, “In a lot of ways it seems like we have been preparing for this since the early days of the pandemic, knowing that one day we would have the privilege of vaccinating our colleagues and community. Though the history books may not know our names, I will never forget all of the people and all that we achieved together this past year. I have never been so proud to be a part of the LG Health team.”
Moving forward, the LG Health pharmacy team will be a willing and ready resource for the community, including at the Community Vaccination Center that LG Health and other health systems in the region and county government opened last month which could vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day.