Overlake Medical Center & Clinics invited about 110 donors who gave more than $10,000 to the Bellevue, Wash.-based health system to receive COVID-19 vaccines, drawing criticism from the state's governor, according to The Seattle Times.
Molly Stearns, the chief development officer at Overlake, emailed the "major donors," as they were addressed in correspondence, about 500 open appointments in its COVID-19 clinic that were set to open Jan. 23. According to The Seattle Times, donors who received the email got an access code to register for appointments.
The vaccination appointments weren't exclusive to donors, but were open to some 4,000 people who were board members, some patients, volunteers, employees and retired health providers, Overlake told the newspaper. All registrants were supposed to meet state-specific eligibility requirements for the vaccine, according to The Seattle Times.
Tom DeBord, Overlake's COO, told the newspaper that the invitation was sent after the hospital's scheduling system stopped working properly. To speed up distribution, the system began contacting people whose emails they had access to, which included donors, retirees, some patients and board members.
"We're under pressure to vaccinate people who are eligible and increase capacity. In hindsight, we could certainly look back and say this wasn't the best way to do it," Mr. DeBord told The Seattle Times.
Once Gov. Jay Inslee's office found out about the "invite-only" appointments, the office asked Overlake to shut down the sign-ups, which the system did.
In a Jan. 27 statement posted to the health system's website, Overlake said all communications with people invited to sign up for the vaccine "made clear that people must show proof of eligibility under current Washington State requirements to ultimately be vaccinated, no matter who they are or how they are affiliated with us. We recognize we made a mistake by including a subset of our donors and by not adopting a broader outreach strategy to fill these appointments, and we apologize. Our intent and commitment has always been to administer every vaccine made available to us safely, appropriately, and efficiently."
Read the full report here.