Lake Cumberland Schoolhouse Health Distributes Vaccines to Local Educators

In an effort to keep students and one another safe, school officials and educators across the nation and region have worked diligently to comply with state and federal health protocols since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  However, as of February 17, only 28 states and the District of Columbia have ahave made some or all educators eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations. With Kentucky being one of the first to expand vaccine distribution to include this group, Lake Cumberland Schoolhouse Health and Schoolhouse Mobile Care have worked with local school administrators throughout Pulaski County to coordinate and provide vaccinations for all eligible staff. To date over 870 local school employees have been vaccinated.    

“The vaccination clinic for Pulaski County Schools has gone very well and we really appreciate working with LCMA and their Schoolhouse Health staff,” shared Patrick Richardson, Superintendent of Pulaski County Schools.

Lake Cumberland Schoolhouse Health and Schoolhouse Mobile Care, initiatives developed by Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital and Lake Cumberland Medical Associates, are a collaboration with Pulaski County, Somerset Independent and Science Hill Independent Schools, servicing three districts and through the district’s school clinics, over 10,000 children annually. During school hours, contracted school nurses provide services such as medication monitoring and dispensing, acute, or sick visits, as well as work with Lake Cumberland Medical Associates’ physicians and nurse practitioners to provide telehealth visits, immunizations, and physicals.
 
Each school district gave employees the opportunity to register for the vaccine and those lists were submitted to the Lake Cumberland District Health Department. From there, the Schoolhouse Health team was able to determine how many vaccines would be needed at each location and travel to each school to provide them – ensuring that educators would not have to take paid leave in order to get the vaccine. Vaccine clinics opened to all the school districts in Pulaski County beginning January 25, 2021. Within less than two weeks, they had distributed all first dose vaccinations to those educators who had registered.
 
School administrators, educators, and students have been among those most impacted by the pandemic, moving back and forth between virtual learning and in-person instruction due to spikes in COVID-19 cases. Lake Cumberland Schoolhouse Health understands the critical need for these employees to be protected and by providing vaccinations to them, in-person schooling can become substantially safer not only for the school system but for the community as a whole.
 
“It was an honor and privilege to assist in vaccinating the employees of our local school systems,” said Valerie Allen, APRN with Schoolhouse Mobile Care. “Thanks to the combined effort of all the school districts, we are working to decrease the spread of COVID-19 and keep our children in school.”
 
For additional information on Lake Cumberland Schoolhouse Health, please visit LakeCumberlandHospital.com/schoolhouse-health

For ongoing updates related to COVID-19 and vaccines, visit LakeCumberlandHospital.com/Coronavirus and the LCRH Facebook page at Facebook.com/LakeCumberlandHospital.

*Pictured (Left to Right):  Robert Edwards, RN, Nursing Supervisor, LCMA; Julie Carnes, LPN; Valerie Allen, APRN; Lojuanna Hardwick, LPN; Bobbie Coffey, RN; Jeanine Blakely, APRN