Availability of H1N1 vaccine

We are now accepting new requests for H1N1 vaccine appointments for the following groups:

• pregnant women
• children age 6 months through 4 years
• children age 5 years through 18 years with chronic conditions or immunosuppression [1]
• health care workers and emergency medical services personnel
• people who live with or care for infants younger than 6 months
• people who live with a woman who is 36 or more weeks pregnant 

Note: The Minnesota Department of Health has added healthy children age 5 years through 9 years to the target group to receive the H1N1 flu mist only. Park Nicollet does not have the H1N1 flu mist available at the time, and is not accepting appointments for this group. Please continue to check this Web site for availability updates.

If you are a current Park Nicollet patient

If you meet the criteria listed above and are a current Park Nicollet patient, call 952-993-2121 to schedule an appointment for the H1N1 vaccine.

If you are not a current Park Nicollet patient

Please note that it takes several minutes to register a new patient. If you meet the criteria listed above and are not a current Park Nicollet patient, e-mail only your name and day and evening phone numbers to flushot@parknicollet.com. Our staff will call you to register you and schedule your appointment. This will help balance the load on our telephone system.

We appreciate your understanding and patience

We will be monitoring the number of incoming calls and e-mails and will do our best to respond as promptly as possible. Our response time will depend on the volume of requests we receive and the continuing availability of the H1N1 vaccine. Please know that we are doing everything we can to make this process as smooth as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Second dose for children under age 10 not yet available

At this time, we are not reserving second doses of H1N1 vaccine for children under age 10 who have already received their first dose of the vaccine. Instead, we our focusing our resources on providing first doses to other high risk patients. We will be assessing our H1N1 vaccine inventory to determine when we can schedule and reschedule second doses.

Getting a second dose

For those patients under age 10 whose second dose appointments were scheduled and cancelled, we will call you to reschedule.

For patients under age 10 getting a first dose, please continue to check this Web page for second dose availability updates. Once there is second dose availability, you will be able to schedule a second dose appointment.

The minimum time recommended for second doses is 28 days after the first dose. However, delaying the second dose does not reduce the efficacy of the vaccine. The two doses will be just as effective, even if the second dose is delayed.

Vaccine types: nasal vs. injectable

There are two ways to receive the H1N1 vaccine. Nasal vaccine (flu mist) is a spray mist that is given through the nose. Only healthy, non-pregnant individuals under age 50 can receive the nasal vaccine. Injectable vaccine is given by a shot. It can be given to all individuals. Availability of each type of vaccine varies. We will schedule you for the appropriate type of vaccine.

More flu information

• Seasonal flu information
• H1N1 novel influenza information (PDF) 
• To listen to a recorded flu update, call 952-993-2101.

[1] Medical conditions that confer a higher risk for influenza-related complications include chronic pulmonary (including asthma), cardiovascular (except hypertension), renal, hepatic, cognitive, neurologic/neuromuscular, hematologic or metabolic disorders (including diabetes mellitus) and immunosuppression (including immunosuppression caused by medications or by human immunodeficiency virus).