OAHHS Hospital Voice Spring/Summer 2021

12 » A magazine for and about Oregon Community Hospitals. UNCHARTED WATERS How four Portland-area health systems joined together as one team get the vaccine into arms at the Oregon Convention Center. By Jon Bell Under normal conditions—and dur- ing more normal times—the four major health systems in the Port- land metro region are focused on their own patients and operations. With a few notable exceptions, Kai- ser Permanente Northwest, Provi- dence Health & Services, Legacy Health, and Oregon Health & Sci- ence University are self-contained. But the COVID-19 pandemic has upended a lot of normal routines and traditions. And for the Portland-area’s health systems, nowhere was that more apparent than at the mass vaccination site at the Oregon Convention Center in Northeast Portland. In short order and faced with the unprecedented task of vaccinat- ing tens of thousands of people, the four health systems banded together like never before. Each brought a unique piece to the puzzle to create one of the largest vaccination sites in the entire country that, at its peak, was poking 8,000 arms a day with syringes filled with the COVID- 19 vaccines. There were bumps in the road, naturally, but by and large the OCC site, christened “All4Oregon,” was a model of effi- ciency and a logistical master- piece. And it succeeded because of how the four health systems