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.

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.

Minor

Age, Ideology, Other:Physician superiority status

Harm to physical health/safety

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.

Stanford Medical Center

Human health and social work activities

Cognition

machine learning

decision support

Stanford Medical Center

Stanford Medical Center

Stanford Medical Center

12/2020

12/2020

Unclear/unknown

Accident

No

names, age, location, position, job, COVID-19 tests