First-Dose COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Skilled Nursing Facility Residents and Staff
Radhika Gharpure, Anita Patel, Ruth Link‐Gelles
Abstract
Residents and staff of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) have been prioritized by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for vaccination in the initial COVID-19 vaccine allocation phase in the US. o facilitate vaccination of LTCF residents and staff, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program 4 in December 2020. This publicprivate partnership between CDC, CVS Pharmacy, Managed Health Care Associates Inc, and Walgreens provides on-site COVID-19 vaccination of residents and staff members at enrolled LTCFs, including skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), assisted living facilities, and other LTCFs across 54 jurisdictions (49 states, 4 cities, and 1 territory). Pharmacy partners provide comprehensive management of the vaccination process to include scheduling, cold chain management, patient counseling, and administration. This Insights describes estimated rates of early receipt of vaccine among residents and staff during the first month of the program, as recently reported in MMWR. The number of residents eligible for vaccination was estimated using the mean weekly resident census counts for each facility during December 14, 2020, through January 17, 2021, from the National Healthcare Safety Network; the number of staff members eligibleforvaccinationwasestimatedusingcountsofuniquestaffmembers for each facility in July through September 2020 from the CMS Payroll-Based Journal. Inclusion criteria for national vaccination esti-mateswereallCMS-certifiedSNFswithavailabledenominatordataand at least 1 on-site clinic in the first month of the program. Inclusion criteria for jurisdiction-level estimates were those in which more than 50 CMS-certified SNFs had at least 1 on-site clinic in the first month of the program.Dataforparticipatingcitieswerecombinedwiththoseoftheir state for jurisdiction-level estimates. This activity was reviewed by CDC and was consistent with applicable federal law and CDC policy.