On Thursday, AdventHealth officials held a news conference to update the public on their vaccine rollout.
Officials with the hospital said they are finalizing plans for a drive-up vaccination site.
“We are beginning to roll out our community vaccination program,” Dr. Tim Hendrix, medical director of AdventHealth Centra Care, said. “We will begin today by sending out invitations to caregivers’ families who are over the age of 65 to sign up for the vaccine.”
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This will not be a drive-thru site like other areas in Central Florida. The new site will be a drive-up location where appointments will be required.
“There are incredibly limited supplies and I want to stress this one thing: We can’t accept walk-ups at this point,” Hendrix added.
Officials said those who qualify will receive an email directly on how to register for an appointment.
AdventHealth has been working tirelessly to vaccinate as many people as possible.
“We vaccinated more than 25,000 people, and that includes not only our frontline team members from Polk and all the way through Flagler County, but also community physicians and first responders in the region,” Hendrix added.
AdventHealth’s Central Florida facilities recently entered a “red status” in response to the climbing number of COVID-19 infections in the region, according to an email sent to AdventHealth employees.
The move means more restrictions in place at hospitals effective immediately, including deferring non-time sensitive elective outpatient surgeries and requiring pre-approval for non-time sensitive/urgent or non-emergent inpatient procedures, according to AdventHealth.
News 6 reporter Lauren Cervantes was at Thursday’s briefing and asked how the hospitals red status impacts patients looking to add elective surgeries. Here’s what AdventHealth officials had to say:
“One of the most important things we do at AdventHealth is look after our sickest patients. And so, really, red status is designed to make sure that those patients who need healthcare the most have access to it. And we’re really pleased that this process that we’re using now and the one we used back in July, allows us to care for those patients who need the most acute treatment today,” Brian Adams, CEO of AdventHealth’s Polk County market said. “We are still doing elective procedures as part of our AdventHealth network, we are reviewing those procedures that might be able to wait a day, two days, three days, so that we can focus on those patients who need the most care now. But we do still do elective procedures as part of this status, where we want to make sure that we have the resources we need for all of our patients.”
Stay with News 6 as we update this developing story