A new tool will help guide unaffiliated health care professionals to their vaccine providers as Phase 1A of the state's vaccine distribution plans continues.

“New to our website today will be a map that shows where health care personnel who are not part of a hospital or health system can get vaccinated,” state Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said in a news conference Monday.

Levine said the map will provide contact information for each location available for vaccinations.

Levine noted the map was available on Monday: www.bit.ly/PaVaccineMap.

As Phase 1A continues, the map will be useful to health professionals — such as dentists, school nurses and chiropractors — who do not belong to a health system or hospital staff. Many other medical professions fall into this category.

The state has received 827,300 doses of the two approved vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

According to the department's COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard, Butler County has 4,388 health workers who have received their first dose and 524 who have received their second and final dose.

In a news release Monday, Jana Panther, spokeswoman for Butler Health System, said the system has fielded many questions and inquiries about vaccine distribution. She said the system continues to vaccinate those who fall under Phase 1A.

“BHS has very limited supply of vaccine,” Panther said. “Vaccine is distributed as quickly as it is received.”

Panther said the state Department of Health controls distribution of the vaccine and has not provided authorization to move into Phase 1B at this time.

“BHS wants anyone in the community who wants to be vaccinated to be vaccinated. BHS will continue to do its part to make this happen,” she said.

According to Levine, the state has issued 243,089 first doses to health workers. She said 21,291 health workers have been fully vaccinated with a second dose.

“They are now fully immunized,” she said. “We are making consistent progress.”

Levine said the department continues to plan for Phase 1B, but she did not have updates on when that phase would begin, despite receiving many questions from concerned individuals.

“We're working on really expanding in many different ways, so that when we activate 1B, those people will be able to get those vaccines,” she said. “Right now, we're focusing on the people in 1A that we talked about.”

Levine again called for patience as the vaccines roll out, but said she maintained optimism that the distribution will ramp up further.

“I think the vaccination pace has increased, and I think that will continue to increase,” she said.