Bainbridge Clinic Surpasses 10,000 Vaccinations
Around noon today, Saturday, March 20, a cannon shot confetti across the Commodore gym. The occasion? Exceeding 10,000 COVID-19 vaccinations administered by Bainbridge Prepares and its partners on Bainbridge and in other parts of the county. The scores of Bainbridge Prepares volunteers who were gathered in the gym to help marshal people through the vaccination process—from intake to registration to vaccination to post-vaccine observation—erupted in applause.Bainbridge's 10,000-vaccines match the number of vaccines that have so far been administered via the Kitsap Public Heath District and Kitsap County EOC Community Vaccination Site at the St. Michael Medical Center in Bremerton.Earlier this morning, before the vaccination clinic opened for the day, a trumpet summoned the volunteers to the morning briefing. City of Bainbridge Island Emergency Management Coordinator Anne LeSage, Deputy Fire Chief Jared Moravec, Site Manager Tyler Heinemann, and Process Improvement Liaison Kathy Hannula-Bral addressed the volunteers to prepare them for the busy clinic, in anticipation of the 580 people scheduled to come through for vaccines, all of them Pfizer and most of them first doses.Hannula-Bral's position is a new one. Her job is to work onsite to observe and constantly fine-tune the vaccination clinic processes to ensure smooth functioning. For example, at today's clinic, Hannula-Bral noticed that data entry volunteers were still being handed forms with illegibly written names. She grabbed a few of the forms and walked through the clinic to the preceding data collection points to show the volunteers there what the problem was. The result? Everyone was able on the spot to fix the cause of what had been a bottleneck in the process.This was the second weekend of the vaccine clinic at Commodore Elementary School. The Commodore gym was chosen as the new site for the ongoing clinic, which had previously been held in Woodward Middle School's covered outdoor sports court, so that people being vaccinated and volunteers could be inside out of the cold.Register for Nixle alerts to find out when vaccines are available and when you can make an appointment:
- Text 98110 to 888777.
- Sign up at Nixle.com.
Make a vaccine appointment here: covidbi.timetap.com.
