Due to new requirements by the State of Washington for utilizing all allocated vaccine within seven days, Island Hospital (IH) will not be able to open the vaccine scheduling system Wednesday as we previously announced. IH will update their website at isldev.wpengine.com/covidvaccine with scheduling details on Monday, February 1^st, after vaccine allocations have been received.

Historically Island Hospital was able to advance-order the vaccine for the following week. Under the new requirements put out by the State, IH will be moving to a same-week scheduling process. If allocations of vaccines are received on Mondays, the schedule will open for appointments later in the week.

“We understand this will cause frustration for many folks who had hoped to schedule online or via phone tomorrow. Our team is doing all we can to try to work within the new guidelines and help vaccinate as many community members as possible,” said IH CEO Charles Hall, MSN, MBA.

Island Hospital has also developed an ethics committee to discuss how to equitably deliver vaccines to those who may not have the resources to schedule online. IH leadership met Monday with community partners and patients to brainstorm solutions to remove barriers to access. The team is also working to make several changes to the online scheduling system as numerous people encountered issues scheduling last week. These changes include:

–  Username/Password: This is now an optional text field and will not be required to schedule an appointment. For individuals who already created a username/password but were not successful in scheduling an appointment, they are welcome to try using it to log in next week, or they can leave these fields blank. The username/password is completely separate from the Island Hospital patient portal login that some patients may be familiar with.

–  Email Address: Many people were having trouble with the email field because they share an email address with their spouse, and the system required a unique email address for each patient. IH changed the unique requirement to allow patients to continue scheduling and not get tied up with this detail.

–  Appointment Date/Time Selection: IH is working with their appointment scheduling vendor to try to lock the date and time for a specific period of time once it is selected so patients are not “timed out” online and lose the appointment.

IH is asking for patience and kindness from the community as they work to help distribute the limited vaccines currently available. Community members can help by referencing the website for vaccine information: https://islandhealths.wpengine.com/coronavirus/.

When the schedule opens next week for vaccine appointments, the vaccine phone message line will also reopen for community members needing assistance with scheduling. Online scheduling is preferred; however, those who cannot access the internet may schedule by leaving a message at 360-299-1367. This message line is checked by staff and volunteers who are returning calls in the order they were received.  The message line will be opened when IH has been allotted vaccines next week.

Details on Phase 1B Eligibility:

• Established patients or residents in our immediate service area, which includes those living on Fidalgo Island, Guemes Island, Sinclair Island and in La Conner.
• The Phase 1B group includes individuals 65 years of age and older, and those 50 years or older living in a multigenerational household.
• Patients will be asked to use the Find Your Phase website (http://www.findyourphasewa.org/) to ensure they meet the 1B requirements.

Community members may also try contacting their county’s public health department for vaccine information:

https://www.skagitcounty.net/Departments/HealthDiseases/coronavirusvaccine.htm

https://www.sanjuanco.com/1737/COVID-Vaccine-Info

https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Health/Pages/Covid-Vaccine.aspx