FAQ #52: February 11, 2021 – Containing Answers from February 9th
Answers to Staff Questions Vaccination, Supplies and PPE, and HR Policies
The following FAQs were adapted from questions submitted by VNSNY staff for the CEO Conference Calls hosted by Dan Savitt on Tuesday, February 9th.
Vaccination
Q. As resident of New Jersey, please advise whether I am excluded from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine from VNSNY, given the expanded eligibility for person’s with health conditions.
A. The answer is no, you are not excluded and if you meet the qualifying conditions for those that are getting vaccinated at our VNSNY vaccination clinic, it doesn’t matter whether you’re coming from or Jersey or New York or Connecticut or from Pennsylvania for that matter, or wherever you’re coming from. So if you qualify and you’re a VNSNY employee, we’d love to see you there.
Q. Can you share the number who were vaccinated?
A. Andria Castellanos: So far we have given 3142 first doses and 355 second doses. And that is to the moment.
Q. I am concerned about recent reports of deaths after people received the second dose. These reports are in the US, Germany, Israel and other countries. Note that vaccine manufacturers cannot be sued for damages. Please comment.
A. Andria Castellanos: I’m going to channel Dr. Dobkin on this. The reports of deaths after second doses have been extremely rare. There have now been likely hundreds of millions of doses given throughout the world. And so Dr. Dobkin would say that it is far better for you to get this vaccine than not to get it. And Tony, would you like to add anything to this?
Tony Dawson: I think you’re absolutely right, Andria. And I would advise to be very careful about what you’re reading and where you’re reading that information from. We keep track of all of the doses that we give and as Andria said, we’ve given thousands of shots already and many second doses and we haven’t had any type of complications other than sore arms and mild side effects.
So again, just be careful about where you’re reading that information from. And I absolutely echo what Andria said. Dr. Dobkin feels that it is much, much better and safer for you to get the vaccine, than it is for you to get COVID and have complications from COVID itself.
Michael Bernstein: I’m just going to add one more thing and that is that Andria hosts a conference call specifically on the vaccination program, on Mondays. Next week, Monday’s a holiday, so it will be on Tuesday. And Dr. Dobkin is able to respond to questions on that callspecifically. And those questions and answers are posted as well, on our Vaccinate VNSNY section of the intranet. You may find answers to these specific questions there as well.
Andria Castellanos: I also want to just add that Dr. Dobkin who is the Medical Director of the Choice Health Plan, has been advising us medically since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. And he is an infectious disease specialist just like Dr. Fauci. And he is extremely knowledgeable and really actually quite world renowned in his field. He spent his career working with HIV andis an infectious disease doctor. And we really rely and depend on his counsel and his advice for all the medical decisions that we make, along with Dr. Dignam, who is the Medical Director on the provider side. So I just wanted to let the audience know that we are taking this very seriously and we are getting very good medical advice from our medical leaders here.
Q. Will the additional qualifying conditions apply to the Friends & Family Program?
A. Response provided after the call: Yes. Here is the updated eligibility:
VNSNY has a Vaccine Standby Program for any individual who meets the criteria for New York’s Phase 1a and 1b. This includes certain categories of frontline essential workers (e.g., teachers, first responders, grocery workers, transit workers), and as of 2/15/2021, individuals with select health conditions and comorbidities. NY’s eligibility criteria are detailed here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccine-eligibility.page
Q. I also heard about pregnant women in Israel miscarried within a few days after getting vaccinated.
A. So I would just refer back to the answer that was just given when we just talked about the safety of the vaccine.
Q. Are staff who live outside New York eligible or just New York residents?
A. Yes, I answered that earlier. And so if you meet the eligibility criteria, please come in.
Q. Thank you for offering vaccines to people with comorbid conditions. Will alternate vaccine sites be available? I live on Long Island and would like to avoid a trip into the City if possible.
A. At this point, we do not have plans for additional sites.
Andria Castellanos: Correct. We’re going to be offering it in our main office.
Dan Savitt: Yes. And so it is a trek in. I think it’s worth it. We don’t have the capacity at this point, to be offering outside, even though we would have a desire. It would exceed our ability to get it done right now.
Q. How many people have been vaccinated through the Friends & Family Program?
A. Andria Castellanos: Yes. I can give you a range. It’s somewhere between 150 and 200. I’m not exactly sure of the exact amount.
Q. How do I change my second vaccine appointment?
A. And so to do that you would call us. That’s the easiest way. And I think I gave the number earlier. That is the Vaccination Hotline number (212) 609-4126. And remember, you can check the Vaccinate VNSNY page on our intranet site as well as the Partners In Care site.
HR Policies / Pay and PTO Policies
Q. I did not receive my W-2 and I don’t have AskHR on my computer. I tried to call HR yesterday but couldn’t reach anyone and was not able to leave a message. So please advise.
A. And this is an important question. I’m sure other people have had this issue. So Marian, do you have something for us?
Marian Haas, Chief Human Resources Officer: W-2s were sent out around January — the end of January, January 31st is the deadline for sending them. Hopefully the person that asked this question may receive it, because we know the mail’s been delayed, especially based upon Dan’s story earlier today.
But if you don’t receive your W-2 in the mail it will be available to you through Workday on or about February 15th. So payroll will be sending out a notice so that you can go to Workday and print it out. If you have trouble accessing Workday you can call HR Connect and we can help you with that.
The HR Connect number is (212) 609-7900. You can leave a voicemail there. I’m sorry if this person was calling a number and couldn’t leave a voicemail there yesterday. But again, that number is (212) 609-7900. Thank you.
Q. My Care Connect app is down from Saturday. I need help getting it working.
A. I believe we fixed those issues but someone on the call may have different information. But certainly you can also contact the Help Desk for this.
Michael Bernstein, Chief Experience Officer: And when I spoke with you briefly before, I think I misread it and thought it was the Home Care Home Base app. This is the HHA Exchange app orthe app, I should say, Care Connect. And I don’t have information about if it was down on Saturday and if everything has been fixed. But we will certainly look into that to get back to this individual who worked in Partners in Care.
Q. I got a call last week telling me that I have to come into Partners in Care to sign some papers because I was out of compliance. I was wondering couldn’t those papers be emailed or even posted and it could have an email post or even faxed back. I live in Staten Island so I lose a day’s pay to come in and sign those papers. Wouldn’t it be easier to inform their supervisor?
A. We’ll certainly respond personally to this one because it’s a very specific email. But (Andria), do you have anything to add before we do respond through email personally to her?
Andria Castellanos, Chief of Provider Services: I think the only thing I would add is that we certainly don’t want people to make trips into the office that they don’t have to. And so I don’t understand this specific instance. We will investigate it and see if there was a reason why we had to do this. But it is our goal to not have people come into the office unless they absolutely need to make that trip. So we will look into this one and there might be a reason why. And then if there isn’t a reason, hopefully we can remedy this moving forward.
Supplies, Masks and PPE
Q. How can we best prepare for this Zoom training: Cardinal At Home Supply Bag Replenishment Program training?
A. Michael Bernstein: The Cardinal At Home Supply Bag Replenishment Program is an effort that we have undertaken for the very reason that a number of people have raised and questioned here, to try to provide the drop shipping of supplies directly to your home, so you do not have to travel unnecessarily.
As Andria said, we are always seeking to minimize that and this is an example of that. So that’s what it’s about. Cardinal is a vendor. And it’s about being able to get the clinical supplies to you at your home upon your request, fulfilled that way. The Zoom training explains how that will all work. And so I hope this answers the question. More information to come.
Administrative
Q. There are competing meetings with this weekly call.
A. So I realize that whatever time we pick for this call there’s going to be other things going on. And so we try to move the call around a bit during the day, to address that. And we’ll continue to do so.
I like the last two weeks as it’s been at 11:00. I can talk with the team. We have really scheduled this out to be at 11:00 each week. That might be the best answer. Because if it’s consistent each week then meetings can be moved around this particular call. But I will work with the communications team and we’ll look to see if it makes more sense to move it around and get some variability throughout the weeks or keep consistent so folks can schedule around it if they want to attend, which would be probably the most likely answer to this one.
Michael Bernstein: I just want to remind everyone on the call, that every single one of these calls we’ve done since last March, there’s a recorded transcript that is placed on our intranet in the COVID-19 hub. And there is a written transcript that appears within a couple of days of the actual call and provides answers to questions that were submitted. The answers verbatim from what you hear from those of us in the speakers’ room or annotated answers if new information has come to light or if we had to get back to get accurate information.
So if you unfortunately miss the call, there are at least two ways to get the same information – you can listen to the call or you can read the transcript within 48 hours typically, of when the call occurred.
Q. It’s great to hear about the corporate OKRs. I’d imagine folks have a lot of questions, especially about the involvement or expectations in the larger OKR program. Would it be a good time to mention how the OKRs will work and that how it will be implemented is currently to be determined?
A. So what I would say here is we’ve been talking about objectives and key results and that new methodology. We’ve pulled together a core team who’s going to really help lead us through the implementation of how to use this important goalsetting process, as we move forward as an organization.
And that there’ll be more information coming. It’s going to be a disciplined rollout but realize this is a bit of a culture change. And so that culture change will take time. What I would ask is for everybody who’s engaged in this process be open and engaged, because I believe we will truly hit our goals around alignment and stretch and those other things that I talked about previously.
So more to come, and we’re excited about it and hope that you will see the value that I see, and really latch onto it with everybody else.