Burnett Medical Center, Grantsburg, 2021 Community Benefit

Administering Thousands of COVID-19 Vaccines

Eligible community members waiting to receive their COVID-19 vaccine.
Burnett Medical Center (BMC) is a 501(c)(3) critical access hospital and is the only hospital located in Burnett County, WI. Since the pandemic, they have installed an additional five negative pressure rooms in the inpatient unit and emergency department, installed ionization technology to provide continuous surface and air disinfection throughout the facility and installed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for the laboratory to accelerate and more accurately diagnose patients with or without COVID-19. 
However, BMC’s greatest accomplishment thus far is being able to administer COVID-19 vaccines to our community members. On Dec. 17, 2020, BMC received its first supply of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It was delivered for distribution to frontline health care workers and to BMC’s Continuing Care Center residents. Those doses were all administered to the hospital staff and Continuing Care Center residents within 48 hours. 
On Feb. 3, 2021, the first group of eligible community members were vaccinated in the waiting room of BMC’s clinic. A rapid response committee created a streamlined process for BMC to safely administer hundreds of doses a day from the convenience of the clinic waiting room. Once the volume of patients decreased enough, the mass vaccination clinic was no longer needed, and patients are now able to get vaccinated in the clinic through BMC’s new COVID Clinic service. 
As of today, thousands of doses have been administered due to BMC’s efforts. This is one way BMC is trying to stop the spread.