WRH Develops Pfizer Inventory Management Tool
18-1-2021
Decision Support at Windsor Regional Hospital has developed an innovative tool to eliminate the possibility of human error in administrating the Pfizer vaccine.
Managing the highly sensitive vaccine requires a complex equation with moving variables such as the amount of doses on hand, the number of people being vaccinated on any given day plus future shipments.
“We are trying to balance giving as many people as possible the first dose and account for any future shipments coming down the road plus making sure we will always have enough to give people their second dose three weeks later,” says Decision Support Analyst Kurt Lucas.
Windsor Regional Hospital received its first shipment on Monday, December 21 and within 24 hours, the vaccine was going into the arms of long-term care workers.
Initially, the calculation of the vaccine was done manually, but then hospital CEO David Musyj approached Decision Support about setting up an Excel tracking model.
Musyj was so impressed by it, he asked for a generic version of the tracking tool and shared it with 14 other hospitals. Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, Ontario has adopted the system.
“Sincere thanks to colleagues at Windsor Regional Hospital for creating and sharing an excellent Pfizer tracking excel model,” tweeted Tyler Chalk, chief strategy and communications officer at Southlake Regional Health system.
“In one sense, it is straight forward,” says Lucas. “But the logic behind it requires a lot of tricky formula writing and the way we set up the data in it, required careful planning and oversight by the entire department.”
Lucas points out the motivation behind the development of the tracking tool was the hard work done by everyone who is part of the vaccine program to ensure proper management of the vaccine, to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“Everyone from our pharmacy, the team at St. Clair College and hospital leadership has been working so hard and we want to make this part of their job a little easier for them,” says Lucas.
And from a pharmacy perspective, the tracking tool has made a world of a difference according to Director of Pharmacy Antoinette Duronio.
“From a pharmacy perspective, the sheet is integral for vaccination planning (ie. To make sure we have enough stock) as well as to track doses required for the second dose of vaccine,” says Duronio.
Windsor Regional Hospital has been vaccinating 500 people a day focusing on priority groups set by the Province.