COLOMBIA – An online scheduling system for COVID-19 vaccines in South Carolina is due to launch next week, replacing a nightmare, multi-step registration process that even health officials refer to as a four-letter word .
Also assisting the elderly in trying to get an injection will be a hotline specifically for questions about vaccines and help with scheduling appointments, with a team of more operators, meaning that callers will actually be able to call.
Both should be up and running next week. Stay tuned for details, Dr. Brannon Traxler, the state’s director of public health, told reporters on Friday.
His schedule, while still vague, came a day after Marshall Taylor, acting director of the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control, gave lawmakers much more vague “days or weeks” for the simplified system, assuring them that they would not be ” months or a month. “
The DHEC system that went live on January 13, when seniors aged 70 and over became eligible for an injection, involves checking the green dots on the map on a state website – indicating where time is available – and then contact the provider to sign up.
But this is only the first layer of annoyance. The next steps involve the Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS. And that requires an email address, which many vulnerable South Carolina residents don’t have.
The system also slows down providers. Medical University of South Carolina needs nine people a day just to enter data into VAMS, which can be transferred to a vaccination clinic, said Dr. Patrick Cawley, CEO of MUSC Health.
To further complicate matters are the flaws in the system, which include the added irritation that VAMS “spontaneously cancels consultations,” said Taylor.
He promised senators on January 12 that a replacement was in progress.
“VAMS is a four-letter word, and we don’t like it either,” said Taylor on Thursday. “It’s a difficult system for providers to use, DHEC and the public, the most important.”
In DHEC’s new centralized online system, people will see the service hours available from providers and will be able to schedule the first and second time. The follow-up injection, several weeks after the first, is necessary for immunity, for both Pfizer and Modern vaccines.
Those who do not have e-mail can call the new hotline to make an appointment.
“It will be a much less clumsy system than VAMS, and we think it will speed things up significantly,” said Taylor.
DHEC’s new call center will initially have 100 people, which will grow to several hundred people, he said.
DHEC already has a call center, but its operators answer questions and schedule everything that the huge agency takes care of. Its staff doubled to 60 on January 13, after a flood of calls from newly qualified seniors rendered it completely inoperable.
Until the designated vaccine call center is open, Taylor said, people should continue to access the DHEC website if possible, as the waiting time on the Helpline will continue to be long.
“I’m sorry that people have to wait and can’t get through,” he said.
Earlier this week, South Carolina’s largest hospital system, Prisma, announced that it was conducting visits to its drive-thru vaccination sites in Columbia and Greenville. Same-day assistance was an acknowledgment that many in the population aged 70 and over do not have access to the Internet to schedule an appointment or, even if they do, may be unable to navigate the complicated online registration system.
Thousands of eligible seniors got a chance at the drive-thrus that started Monday.
But on Friday, Prisma said the Greenville site would no longer accept visits without notice and that the Columbia site would likely follow suit.
“Our supply has now decreased,” said Dr. Saria Saccocio, outpatient medical director at Prisma Health. “We do not have an excessive stock of vaccine.”
Prisma officials told lawmakers that their goal is to vaccinate 10,000 people daily. They came very close on Thursday, with 9,370 people taking a chance at both drive-through locations. But the ability to reach the goal, and do it continuously, is all about supply.
The weekly federal shipment of some 63,000 initial doses to South Carolina – plus second doses, which are ordered separately – is expected to continue in the near future.
There are still more consultations to obtain a vaccine than doses available across the state, Traxler said.
Prisma alone got 100,000 nominations specifically for people aged 70 and over, Saccocio said.
Jessica Holdman contributed to this report.