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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 29, 2024 02:16 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Increasing Access to Childhood Vaccines |
| In an effort to protect equity in access to healthcare in Pennsylvania, I believe that we need to restore parent’s options for vaccine access for their children. Additionally, it is important that we provide options that are convenient and available to patients in places they already frequent, like pharmacies. Pharmacies have been safely immunizing our children for many years and were the frontline of the national and state COVID-19 vaccine response. In PA, more than 25 million vaccines were given to patients between 2019-2023, including 1.4 million to children aged three and older. 40% of the vaccines pharmacies gave during the pandemic were in medically underserved rural and urban areas. During the pandemic, federal law also authorized pharmacists and nationally trained pharmacy technicians to administer the full range of CDC-approved routine childhood vaccines. Unfortunately, that authority lapsed in May 2023 concurrent with the expiration of the Federal Public Health Emergency (PHE). We must act now to restore our constituents’ option to have their children vaccinated at our neighborhood community pharmacies. Specifically, my bill would do this by adopting the federal language authorizing pharmacists, pharmacy interns and trained pharmacy technicians to administer the full range of CDC-approved vaccines to children aged five and older. This provision would be subject to current statutory requirements for pharmacy-based vaccines like parental consent, record keeping, training and protocols. Healthcare providers should partner to fill in the gaps in our system and coordinate patient access to care. The bill requires the pharmacist administering a vaccine to a child to: 1) Notify the patient’s pediatrician or PCP, if they have one, that the vaccine was administered and report it to the PA DOH Immunization Registry; 2) Counsel the child’s parent or caregiver on the importance of pediatric well-child visits and provide a referral if appropriate. Please join me in co-sponsoring a bill that will promote healthcare access for children across the Commonwealth. |
Memo Updated: February 29, 2024 02:22 PM