In early August, 2021 the California Department of Public Health released a statement requiring all healthcare workers to be vaccinated from Covid-19 by September 30, 2021.
They defined “worker” as “all paid and unpaid individuals who work in indoor settings where (1) care is provided to patients, or (2) patients have access for any purpose. This includes workers serving in health care or other health care settings who have the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or SARS-CoV-2 airborne aerosols.”
While medical delivery services aren’t directly listed in the State Department’s definition of “worker”, we are taking this mandate seriously.
Medical Couriers are Healthcare Workers
We covered this before when we talked about our culture of care, but as medical couriers, we are a vital part of the healthcare logistics system. We regularly operate in sensitive environments. Our business is built around traveling from sensitive community to sensitive community.
We deliver medicines, specimens, vaccines and more between a range of healthcare facilities and communities daily!
We deliver medicines from pharmacies to long term care homes, medical specimens from specimens to active labs, and we deliver the vaccines themselves from clinic to clinic with our vaccine ambulances.
We are hyper-aware of our potential for transmission of the Covid-19 virus in our critical role. It’s our responsibility to ensure the safety of our drivers and the communities we work within, so we’re watching closely as State Departments, hospital systems, pharmacies, and labs share their new vaccine related access requirements in California.
Because we have always been in the medical delivery industry, this isn’t a new way of thinking for us. We think you should always be able to expect this type of service from your medical courier service.
All of our drivers are bio-hazard trained and HIPAA certified already. That means they aren’t shocked when there are new and specific medical requirements to work in the medical delivery industry. Our team understands the importance of accountability and safety, so upholding this mandate is a simple pivot.
How We’re Handling the Vaccine Requirements in California
Although we have network delivery partners all over the US, our home team is based in California. So we have the advantage of adopting and developing practices that meet the new requirements for vaccination and then sharing them proactively with our Network Partners in other states, as their states embrace the same issues and challenges.
Educating drivers
As the Covid-19 vaccinations became available, in some cases late last year, we started an education program that helped our Drivers and Staff understand the benefits of protection that the vaccines were demonstrating. As that trend continued, we saw an ever increasing number of our Drivers voluntarily getting vaccinated, culminating in our current status as a fully vaccinated fleet here in California!
Staying Ahead of the Vaccine Requirements in California
“Proactive not reactive” is our operating mantra. We are committed to staying ahead of the regulations and preparing our teams for changing environments. This lets us make plans ahead of time so that we’re not blind sided by new requirements and expectations.
For most delivery businesses right now, especially typical last mile delivery services, the vaccine, testing, and badge requirements are proving overwhelming and compliance, challenging.
We have been watching the political and social landscape closely because our services are vital to preserving the health and welfare of our community and understanding emerging trends is part of our larger service responsibility. Accordingly, we were able to meet individual Client requirements for vaccination that pre-dated State mandates for compliance by as many as 45 days.
Expanding our Capacity
Medical Couriers has a statewide Covid specimen transport network capable of moving specimens from nearly anywhere in California to testing laboratories within 14 hours! This network has the capacity to move up 20,000 specimens per today and yet we continue to recruit vaccinated Drivers to add to this capacity, in order to meet the heightened demand triggered by the latest variant.
Do you know the vaccination status of your medical delivery staff?
If you haven’t asked your medical courier service what their Covid-19 vaccine policies are for their drivers, it’s time.
