UCLA Needs a New Vaccine Rollout for Eligible Employees - Part 3 (How to do it better)

We have been posting about the opaque system of vaccine priority offered by UCLA. There appears to be one system for eligible employees (not in the health system) and another for patients. It is unclear whether being in the employee system overrides being in the patient system if one is in both. As we have noted, the employee system creates a series of hurdles and non-working elements, presumably the result of excess lawyering and insufficient IT. Jumping the hurdles in the employee system does not seem to result in an appointment, although going to the vaccine site and pleading your case in person might work. The patient system seems randomly to generate appointment invitations. Given the need to ration limited supplies of vaccine, is there a potential better and more transparent system? Indeed, there is.

Many retail stores have long operated a take-a-number system. Indeed, you find such systems in use within the health care system at UCLA, if you - say - go to have blood drawn or fill a prescription.

How would it apply to vaccination? Simply notify all eligible persons - employees and patients (say everyone over 75) to email or otherwise sign up for vaccination. Each applicant gets a number, based on the order received. Then you go down the list in numerical order to the extent vaccines are available. Post the latest number being served. If you are, say, 307, you look up to see what number is being currently served. If 301 is being served, you know your appointment will be soon. If you are 750, in contrast, you know you have a way to go. Simple, self-administering, and transparent.

Yours truly - both an eligible employee and a patient - has given up on UCLA and is going to the Forum today, run by LA County. But there is a piece in Variety in which UCLA is trying to assure the world that it is not giving priority to those using "concierge" services.* A simple take-a-number system would provide such assurances and make it clear who was getting what and when they would get it.

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*Those enrolled in UCLA’s executive health program (which is or isn’t a concierge health service, depending on who you ask) have been inundating program director Dr. Robert Ansell for information on when they can receive the vaccine. “UCLA is operating extremely by the book and hasn’t given a single shot to the concierge patients,” one member of the service said. The UCLA executive health program requires a fee and donation to UCLA Medical Center, which costs in the $15,000 to $25,000 range on an annual basis, numerous members said, on top of premium medical care. Some members have been openly venting to industry figures on UCLA’s Board of Regents — including United Talent Agency co-president Jay Sures, Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber, and former Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing – about the vaccine rollout in Los Angeles, and asking when concierge patients might be eligible...

Full story at https://variety.com/2021/film/news/covid-vaccine-hollywood-skipping-line-1234891647/