Incident 91: Frontline workers protest at Stanford after hospital distributed vaccine to administrators
Entities
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Taxonomy DetailsFull Description
In 2020, Stanford Medical Center residents protested the Center's distribution of only 7 of the 5,000 COVID-19 vaccines it had received to Medical Residents, who were frontline workers compared to other hospital staff less exposed to COVID-19. Stanford Medical Center employed an algorithm to determine vaccine distribution, and its weight of certain factors alongside the lack on information inputted for Medical Residents shaped the outcome of the distribution plan. The algorithm alledly prioritised age and superiority of position, regardless of physician's physical location at the Stanford Medical Center during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Short Description
In 2020, Stanford Medical Center's distribution algorithm only designated 7 of 5,000 vaccines to Medical Residents, who are frontline workers regularly exposed to COVID-19.
Severity
Minor
Harm Distribution Basis
Age, Ideology, Other:Physician superiority status
Harm Type
Harm to physical health/safety
AI System Description
Stanford Medical Center's algorithm used a rules-based formula for calculating who would get the COVID-19 vaccine first at Stanford. It considers three categories: “employee-based variables,” which have to do with age; “job-based variables”; and guidelines from the California Department of Public Health. For each category, staff received a certain number of points, with a total possible score of 3.48. Presumably, the higher the score, the higher the person’s priority in line.
System Developer
Stanford Medical Center
Sector of Deployment
Human health and social work activities
Relevant AI functions
Cognition
AI Techniques
machine learning
AI Applications
decision support
Location
Stanford Medical Center
Named Entities
Stanford Medical Center
Technology Purveyor
Stanford Medical Center
Beginning Date
12/2020
Ending Date
12/2020
Near Miss
Unclear/unknown
Intent
Accident
Lives Lost
No
Data Inputs
names, age, location, position, job, COVID-19 tests
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Update, Dec. 18, 2020: This story has been updated to add comments from Stanford Medicine.
Stanford Medicine residents who work in close contact with COVID-19 patients were left out of the first wave of staff members for the new Pfizer vacc…
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Stanford Health Care apologized Friday for a plan that left nearly all of its young front-line doctors out of the first round of coronavirus vaccinations. The Palo Alto, Calif., medical center promised an immediate fix that would move the p…
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
Medical residents and nurses from Stanford Medical Center held a protest on Friday following the hospital choosing to vaccinate some staff members who don’t interact with coronavirus patients over other frontline workers.
Video footage from…
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
An algorithm determining which Stanford Medicine employees would receive its 5,000 initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine included just seven medical residents / fellows on the list, according to a December 17th letter sent from Stanford Med…
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
When resident physicians at Stanford Medical Center—many of whom work on the front lines of the covid-19 pandemic—found out that only seven out of over 1,300 of them had been prioritized for the first 5,000 doses of the covid vaccine, they …
