Since receiving the vaccines Tuesday afternoon, over 300 of our frontline workers were given their first of two vaccine doses. Their second dose will be given in about 17-21 days.  

“This is the next phase of our response to the pandemic,” said Chad Alvarez, senior director of pharmacy and the leader of our COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. “By providing the vaccine to our colleagues who work day in, day out on the frontlines of the pandemic, we’re better able to help our neighbors in need.”  

We received our first shipment of 4,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine this afternoon. The initial batch will support vaccinations of frontline health care workers with direct patient care responsibilities at our facilities. Also included in that shipment were doses destined for non-Carilion hospitals in our region who do not have the appropriate freezers for storage.  

Last week we began rolling out some updates that Microsoft made to the Teams meeting experience.

When you click the link to join a meeting, Teams will ask you to choose from a list of video and audio options before you join the meeting. You will see a screen that looks like this:

As you have seen, we are expecting to get the first round of Pfizer vaccine shipments allotted from the state's supply in the coming days. Official authorization from the FDA should be announced soon.

Have you signed up for text message appointment reminders? After an initial rollout to a select number of sites in August, this convenient service is now available for patients at all of our practice sites.

Here’s how it works:

In May, the federal government released new regulations focused on patient access, interoperability and information blocking. These regulations are related to the 21st Century Cures Act and the Interoperability and Patient Access final rule (CMS-9115-F). The regulations must be implemented by April 5, 2021.

 We're actively working on collecting, identifying, digitizing and archiving thousands of photographs from Carilion’s history.

Preserving and maintaining our history is the best way to know where we’ve been and how far we’ve come and to appreciate all the health care workers that came before us.

But there are mysteries in our archives—and you can help us solve them!

Recently, we have received reports of faxes asking physicians to confirm information about patients or to confirm that someone is a patient of Carilion Clinic. We believe these faxes could be tied to Medicare billing scams.
 
The faxes claim to be from national pharmacy chains and state they are HIPAA compliant physician authorizations. Patients sign HIPAA authorizations, not physicians. No authorization is required when making disclosures for purposes of treatment, payment and healthcare operations.
 

On Dec. 3, the Departments and Services section of Inside Carilion is getting a new look and feel!

Thank you for your continued commitment to keeping your coworkers and our patients safe during the pandemic by masking, washing your hands frequently and social distancing. Please continue to be COVID-Safe this holiday season!