The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) on Oct. 28 presented its annual Community Health Leadership Award to Swedish for its mobile vaccine clinic team. WSHA awarded Swedish for its innovation and lasting impact on the community.
Swedish launched its mobile COVID-19 vaccine clinics to reach underserved communities with COVID-19 vaccinations. They partnered with CellNetix, T-Mobile, Denali, SEIU and YMCA of Greater Seattle to visit 21 sites, including the Ethiopian Community Center, numerous churches and the Pacific Islander Community Association. In all, Swedish’s mobile clinics distributed more than 9,100 COVID-19 vaccines. They also held mass vaccination clinics at Seattle University and Lumen Field.
“Words alone cannot express the immense gratitude I have for our partners,” said Nwando Anyaoku, M.D., Swedish's chief health equity officer. “Each partner made it possible for our Swedish mobile vaccine clinic team to equitably deliver vaccines to more vulnerable communities in a way that helped overcome a lot of barriers they would typically face.”
“We didn’t expect 2021 to be as difficult as it has been,” WSHA CEO Cassie Sauer said. “The wave from the delta variant proved the most vicious yet, sending many hospitals and health systems across the country into crisis standards of care, but it never happened in Washington. By working together with communities across the state, hospitals balanced patient loads, cared for those in need and helped residents get vaccinated. Swedish played a key role in this response.”
WSHA also presented the award to the Washington Medical Coordination Center for its work managing hospital patient transfers; Kittitas Valley Health Care and Kittitas Valley Incident Management Team, Samaritan Healthcare for its COVID-19 response; and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health for its COVID-19 vaccination program.
WSHA’s Community Health Leadership Award is given annually by WSHA’s Hospital Governing Boards Committee to hospitals and health systems that are serving their communities’ broader health needs in innovative and lasting ways. In 2020 and 2021, the awards focused on response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
