PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Rachel Beitlich AU - Amber Larson AU - Emily Mishek TI - 24 100,000 reasons QI works: a vaccine story AID - 10.1136/bmjoq-2021-IHI.24 DP - 2021 Nov 01 TA - BMJ Open Quality PG - A29--A30 VI - 10 IP - Suppl 2 4099 - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/10/Suppl_2/A29.short 4100 - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/10/Suppl_2/A29.full SO - BMJ Open Qual2021 Nov 01; 10 AB - Background In late 2020, in the midst of a surge of COVID-19 in Minnesota, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was granted emergency use authorization. HealthPartners CEO Andrea Walsh challenged our organization to provide a plan for administering 10,000 COVID-19 vaccines a day, and Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital leveraged our history of quality improvement to rapidly plan, execute, and scale vaccine administration.ObjectivesTimely vaccination of multiple populations (healthcare workers, high-risk patient populations, and general public)Operate efficiently under several constraints (space, staffing, and vaccine supply)Maximize capacity to fluctuating vaccine allotmentsMethods Our work leveraged several QI tools such as value stream mapping (figure 1), weighted average cycle times (figures 2 and 3), visual management (figure 4), and standard work. We utilized the Model for Improvement and sequential PDSA cycles (figure 5):Space required ongoing adjustments in roles, staffing, and flow. We cross-trained to allow for multi-skilled operation, and to accommodate social distancing through the entire process.To reflect our community’s needs, we continuously adjusted to provide a mixed model of first/second dose, delivering service in multiple languages, serving adult and pediatric populations, and ambulatory and non-ambulatory patients. We used predictive modeling to anticipate number of vials needed, standardized drawing process to maximize doses from each vial, and instituted a standby process to eliminate end-of–day waste.Results In total, during a 6-month operation we administered nearly 100,000 doses.Abstract 24 Figure 1 Initial value stream map of clinic operations. Scaled to predict staffing needs in order to achieve 10,000 vaccines a day using the same modelAbstract 24 Figure 2 Due to space constraints in post-vaccination waiting room to accommodate social distancing, calculations were needed to understand how many chairs would be needed with different volume/flow through the clinic (and ultimately was the rate limiting step in the total capacity of the clinic)Abstract 24 Figure 3 Understanding cycle times and staffing needs at different rates of vaccinations per hour. Weighted average cycle times were used to accommodate differing complexity of patients (based on demographics of currently eligible populations). Based on the efficiency of cycle times achieved, different numbers of vaccinators and hours of operation would be needed to achieve volume goalsAbstract 24 Figure 4 Space planning: optimize flow, maximize capacityAbstract 24 Figure 5 Results, demonstrating rapid cycles of PDSA and frequent adjustments due to changing patient populations, vaccine supply, efficiencies achieved.Conclusions Our legacy as an organization with a mature culture of improvement contributed to trust of rapid cycles of PDSA, which allowed us to deliver on the Triple Aim:Reducing cost by using existing employees and volunteersAddressing health of the population by targeting multiple patient tiers to optimize supplyDelivering experience from invite to injection with sensitivity to patient needs