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Minnesota Department of Health
January 7, 2021
Welcome to our new weekly COVID-19 vaccine provider bulletin. You are receiving this email because you are a registered provider for COVID-19 vaccine.
This weekly bulletin will be sent out to a subscription list. Since you are already registered with us for COVID-19 vaccine, we have added you to this list. In order to continue to get COVID-19 vaccine provider updates, you need to be subscribed to this list. There is no action you need to take to stay on this list.
If you do not need to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.
For colleagues and partners who are interested in subscribing to this bulletin, they can enter their email at Minnesota Department of Health Email Updates to choose this subscription list: "COVID-19 vaccine provider updates". It is listed under "Diseases and Conditions" or "Provider Resources." Please share this with them!
Soon, we will be adding an option to quick subscribe, as well as a webpage with past bulletins, at at COVID-19 Vaccine Information for Health Professionals.
Here are the COVID-19 vaccine provider updates for 12/31/20-1/7/21.
We continue to move through vaccinating health care workers and long-term care residents in phase 1a. As providers are completing inpatient direct-care staff, we are starting to move to other health care workers as part of priority 2 and 3 within phase 1a. Priority 2 also includes assisted living facilities, which is a large population in Minnesota. Planning has begun for phase 1a priority 3 health care workers, which include all other out-patient services. For facilities that have enough vaccine, they can start to move into priority 3 of phase 1a. Right now, we are prioritizing the assisted living setting. We will not be able to allocate a large amount of new first doses of vaccine to this priority 3 group to other facilities for a couple of weeks. We anticipate being through all priority groups in phase 1a by the end of January.
- Smaller sites with fewer than 100 employees will have to coordinate with regional groups for vaccine services or to receive redistributed vaccine. Groups to coordinate with might include local public health, your health care system, or community vaccinators.
- Any site receiving and administering vaccine to their own staff will need to enroll in the COVID-19 vaccine program. You also need to enroll if you will be vaccinating patients, such as older adults (those 75 years and older), who will be in phase 1b. Find more at COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Registration.
The provider guide and training modules have been updated and can be found at COVID-19 Vaccine Information for Health Professionals.
Find updates on:
- COVID-19 vaccine excursions (out-of-range temperatures) (page 8)
- COVID-19 vaccine disposal (page 23)
- COVID-19 vaccine administration fee (page 23)
Find the recent changes as of Dec. 30, 2020 at Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Currently Authorized in the United States.
We are updating our vaccine protocols and screening and agreement template to reflect the new guidance. CDC is also updating its current documents including the screening tool and standing orders. Please ensure your facility has updated any screening tools, standing orders/protocols, etc. that are currently being used. Watch for updated EUA fact sheets and use them as soon as they become available.
Since there is no preservative in the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna multi-dose vials, discard the vial when there is not enough vaccine to obtain a complete dose. Do NOT combine residual vaccine from multiple vials to obtain a dose (no pooling).
Providers that receive COVID-19 vaccines shipments directly to their site will receive a series of emails throughout the ordering and shipment process. Before the vaccine order is shipped, MDH will send an email to your primary COVID-19 contact asking you to confirm your readiness to:
- Receive a specific number of doses.
- Safely store and handle the vaccine.
Once you confirm your readiness to receive vaccine, your organization’s primary and back-up COVID-19 contacts will receive a vaccine order confirmation email when your order is placed on your behalf in MIIC and a vaccine shipment confirmation email when your order ships. The shipment confirmation email contains the name of the shipping carrier and the tracking number. Enter the tracking number into the carrier’s website to receive the latest information about when your order will arrive.
By and large, providers are entering COVID-19 vaccine dose administration data in a timely manner, within 24 hours of administration. This is great news! A new spreadsheet for data reporting to MIIC will be ready shortly; please check in MIIC for the latest spreadsheet each time you fill it out.
When an organization administers a vaccine dose, please make sure it is entered into MIIC as an “administered dose” and not a historical dose. Historical means that the dose was given by another organization. The MDH outreach team will continue to email organizations who are not meeting reporting requirements.
Registered COVID-19 providers will soon be able to report vaccine wastage in MIIC. For now, please track COVID-19 vaccine wastage information internally and wait for additional information for how to report these data to MIIC beginning next week.
We sent out information on vaccine inventory on Dec. 18, and we wanted to reiterate that information.
- MDH will report the state’s COVID-19 vaccine inventory to CDC daily.
- MDH does this by using the number of doses distributed to providers and the number of doses administered captured in MIIC.
- To facilitate this reporting and to give visibility to inventory across the state, all COVID-19 providers must:
- Report all COVID-19 administered doses to MIIC within 24 hours of administration.
- Report all COVID-19 vaccine that is redistributed within 24 hours of redistribution.
MIIC inventory function
Use of MIIC’s inventory function is not required for any provider, but is a feature available to use if helpful to provider immunization workflow. MDH is working on adding the 0.3 ml dose to MIIC’s inventory function. It will be available in early January.
Sending COVID-19 data electronically to MIIC will not adjust your inventory numbers in MIIC, but it will count towards inventory reporting. Only entering data through the MIIC user interface and selecting that it comes out of your inventory will adjust your MIIC inventory numbers. If you do not intend to use MIIC to manage your COVID-19 vaccine, do not add it to the MIIC inventory area.
We do not need COVID-19 vaccine inventory added to MIIC for reporting. We do need the COVID-19 vaccine administration data in MIIC and any redistribution data reported in REDCap as noted above.
Moderna trainings
Moderna is hosting a webinar for health care providers this month about the vaccine on Jan. 14 at 11:00 a.m. ET: Webinar Registration
Pfizer trainings
Pfizer will be hosting a series of training sessions to review information and answer questions. Please click on the link below to join the sessions at the designated times. Each training below is the same content.
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