Rachel Cohrs:
Welcome to Modern Healthcare's Reporter Round Table, where we take you beyond the by-lines to better understand the news and how it's reported. I'm Rachel Cohrs, Modern Healthcare's Politics and Policy reporter. I'm here today with Hospital Operations reporter, Alex Kacik. You've heard him as a frequent host on Beyond the Byline. Today, he's going to be talking about his reporting. Usually we discuss stories that we've already published, but we're trying something different today, in talking about a tip Alex received on the important issue of vaccine distribution and the process he went through to verify the information. I think this story is a helpful case study in how we bring our readers information you can trust. Thanks for your time and your insight, Alex.
Alex Kacik:
Thanks for having me, Rachel.
Rachel Cohrs:
All right. Tell us, how did this story begin? What was the tip you received and what was the process from the beginning?
Alex Kacik:
We got a tip on December 23rd. It was late in the day, right before Christmas Eve, that some employees at a big health system found out that some of the vials that they received of the Pfizer vaccine came unfrozen. Typically, these have to be stored in very ultra-low temperatures, some -70 degrees Celsius. Then, you have time to keep them in that storage and then delegate them and distribute them appropriately. But when they come thawed, your window decreases significantly. You have five days. The clock starts ticking at that point. So, if a big health system was getting thawed vials, then they would have only a handful of days to get those in the arms of the folks, and the worry is then that some would potentially be wasted. They wouldn't get to the folks who need them the most.
Alex Kacik:
If providers didn't have time to prepare, then that would be an issue. So, we wanted to check, as we do with all these tips to understand if it's accurate, first and foremost, and then make sure the framing is correct. So, depending on who it's coming from, and as much as we can to double check and verify from multiple sources in and outside of that health system and through other neighboring providers in different states, which is helpful since we have a national base that we cover. So, happy to take you through some of that process from there on.
Rachel Cohrs:
Sure. Thanks so much for the overview. I think, let's go next to you have this information. What's your first step to try and verify it?
Alex Kacik:
At this health system, we'll try to leave some of the specifics out, since we didn't publish a story that day and we'll get into why, but I reached out to one of my sources who works at that health system and they were able to send me this video that came from one of their executives, that talked about some of the difficulties in the handling of their initial shipments of the Pfizer vaccine. In that, they sent me the video, and so this is happening Thursday morning and they sent me the video and they mentioned that there was some hiccups and missteps that occurred and that's bound to happen with a vaccination program this big. But, they also said that they were able to preserve each one of the vials, and none of the vaccine was wasted.
Alex Kacik:
So, after I learned that, I tried to work with state and local Departments of Public Health to understand what the strategy was there. Was this planned? Did providers know ahead of time that they might be getting a thawed vaccine? This happened to a significant number of hospitals across their footprint, so it didn't seem to be like a small one-off issue. The way I read into that internal memo, it caught them off guard, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't taking it out of context. So, I worked with, I reached out to a bunch of sources in that area, mostly on background, to understand if they were having similar issues, with the vaccine rollout. Then, I worked with some of the local and state departments of Public Health agencies to understand what the plan was.
Alex Kacik:
They told me that afternoon, that this was planned all along. They communicated well beforehand, weeks ago. So, this would have been potentially early December, that they would be sending thawed vaccine in order to expedite the administration process, so to get people vaccinated, inoculated as quickly as possible. This was just one of their strategies to do. My concern, as I said before, if providers didn't know about it and if more thawed vaccine was coming and they didn't have time to prepare, that could potentially lead to wasted vaccine.
Rachel Cohrs:
Explain to me, you said you were talking to these sources on background. What does that mean, and how can you use that information?
Alex Kacik:
With most sensitive stories, and Rachel as you're well aware working on the Hill and you get tips all the time, too. You get information from sources that they don't want to be directly attributed to. So, on background means you can vaguely source, like if it was a health system, you could say without naming the specific health system, but you can say an administrator at so-and-so, at a health system said, and then, off the record, you can't quote in stories, but you could use that as a way to broach that topic with another source. Then, we usually try to get two or three other sources to verify that information, to determine its credibility.
Rachel Cohrs:
I know you said, you ultimately decided not to publish. Can you, without going into too much detail, can you just explain to me what burden of proof you were looking for and why this tip didn't quite meet it?
Alex Kacik:
I sent the transcript of that video to the Public Health agencies, and they said that there wasn't any "hiccups on our end." This was a well-communicated plan prior. I'm not sure what they're referencing, and then the health system I worked with, they were saying that they had the whole day to work on this. I'm not sure how their process unfolded, but they said that the hiccups that the executive was referring to was related to their internal distribution process, the way that this vaccine is being administered. They're tiered processes, so you have typically, frontline healthcare workers. Then, you have the rest going to different departments throughout the organization. So, they were saying that folks in their system were upset that they weren't getting priority vaccination and or that first tier.
Alex Kacik:
Then some people didn't get the communication and memo. So, they were saying that was more of a reference to their internal processes, rather than them indirectly saying that there was a problem from the state rollout and the federal rollout in that process. So, I didn't have enough to say that this wasn't a well-communicated plan. I had sources on background and off the record saying that there had been a lot of conflicting information. Some of the vials had been coming from State Public Health Departments. Some have been coming from local. They're just been, it's been sloppy. It's been hard. I mean, naturally, when you have something of this magnitude, there's going to be some distribution hiccups of treatment right and about, prior to this.
Alex Kacik:
But, my main concern is that if providers that don't prepare for thawed vaccine to be coming, and don't have the infrastructure ready to get the shots in the arms of these folks as quickly as possible, then some could be wasted. Allegedly, none of that happened in this scenario, but we have an obligation A, to try to inform or provide the providers who will be getting these vaccines. But also, I'm not trying to potentially place blame on a "botched communication strategy", If that wasn't the case. I'm not trying to put anything out there that incorrectly frames this. If they're saying that the framing of that internal message was related to their internal rollout rather than miscommunication between them and say, the agencies, then I have take them at their word. I didn't have enough at that point, other providers saying that, "Look, we didn't know that thawed vaccine was coming."
Rachel Cohrs:
So, if a source, someone out there would want to share something, like a tip or information with you to go through this reporting and vetting process, now, how would they do that?
Alex Kacik:
A lot of times, it'll be through email or they'll give me a call on my cell phone. Sometimes it will be through social media. Sometimes it'll be through platforms like Signal, encrypted messaging services. We do our due diligence to try to verify any of this. We try to figure out where these folks are coming from when we get tips like that, because there potential ulterior motives here. If they have an investment in a certain sector in healthcare, that could be, that could direct what they tell us, that could guide what they tell us. But hopefully, folks know that we do our due diligence when it comes to these. We don't just, we could have published, that memo, saying that this is one instance of how the vaccine rollout has been tricky, but I didn't feel comfortable. Matt and I didn't feel comfortable in coming up with a story without getting more insight.
Rachel Cohrs:
Yeah. I definitely go through this process daily, weekly, and I really appreciate you shedding some light on the decision-making process and your verification process with this information. Thanks so much for your time today, Alex.
Alex Kacik:
All right. Thank you so much.
Rachel Cohrs:
Make sure you hear every episode of Beyond the Byline. You can subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Radio Public. If you value the work we do, you can subscribe to Modern Healthcare at the link in the show notes. And, of course, if you have any tips that you'd like us to check out, our emails are easily accessible, so you can find us, reach out, and let us know. Thanks for listening.