In late 2021, while working in an intensive care unit at Aspirus Medical Center in Wausau, Wisconsin, I discovered what I came to understand was a widespread and serious problem in how hospitalized patients’ COVID-19 vaccination status was documented and displayed.
Our hospital used the Epic electronic medical record system. On the home screen of each patient’s chart appeared the patient’s COVID-19 vaccination status. At that institution, I observed only two categories: “Fully Vaccinated” and “Unknown.”
Because I was running ICUs, most records I opened belonged to critically ill patients. In November 2021—eleven months into the vaccine campaign— for the first time, I opened the chart of a patient who was identified as “Fully Vaccinated.” I recall being shocked because I hadn’t seen that before and immediately questioned why that was the first because I was well aware at that point of the gross inefficacy of the vaccines. So, I examined the record and found that the patient had been vaccinated in a physician’s office within the hospital’s own clinic system, allowing the vaccination to be entered into the electronic record.