In this episode, Ronette talks about Meharry’s efforts over the last year to fight the pandemic and prioritize the care of the city’s most vulnerable populations.
Meharry Medical College continues to play a leadership role in keeping patients informed and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, both locally in Nashville, Tenn. and nationally with the Biden Administration. Join us for a conversation with Ronette Adams-Taylor, Dir. of Compliance and Risk and Associate General Counsel on Meharry’s response to COVID-19 and how the entire campus rallied to lead and serve Nashville and the nation.
A Community-Based Response to COVID-19
As a community-based organization, Meharry has been a critical partner for the city in testing and now in vaccine distribution.
“It was important that Meharry be a leader in the COVID testing framework from testing to providing vaccinations. Our president was out in the forefront as a member of the Mayor’s Task Force, and our campus was the location of the first centralized COVID testing site.
“I’m proud to say that our team (the compliance and risk team) was instrumental in those meetings. They were there from a logistic perspective, setting up, determining how the flow should run on our campus, etc. We not only had to consider the safety of people’s private data and health information, but the environmental health issues as well.”
We measure success by how well we help people in the community.
“Something I’m incredibly proud of is how Meharry has shown up for its community from testing to vaccinations. One of the important things that came out of the summit last week was the acknowledgment of the disproportionate disparities of vaccines in the underserved and underrepresented community.
“The challenges that Meharry and African Americans in the community have faced is that they don’t have vaccinations or vaccination distribution areas in that community. In fact, there hasn’t been a place since December that has a vaccine distribution area for the underserved. Meharry is not only shining a light on that but is moving the needle, not only in that community but globally.”
