Flaw Impacted 5K Appointments At Moorestown 'Mega-Site'

MOORESTOWN, NJ — Early on, some people making appointments to get the coronavirus vaccine at the Moorestown Mall "mega-site" were getting multiple appointments, including one person who had more than 20 appointments, health officials said on Thursday.

To fix the issue, more than 200 members of the health care system called 10,400 people over several days to resolve the issue, according to health officials.

As a result, more than 5,000 doses became available at the mega-site, officials said. Those appointments were quickly claimed by other eligible people in the community.

The loophole in the scheduling system that resulted in multiple appointments being made has been resolved, according to officials.

“We identified multiple instances in which the same person had two or more appointments. In some extreme cases, a single person had 20 or more vaccine appointments. Clearly, this was a big problem, and we needed to find a solution fast,” said Malik Bahar, director of the access center [phone bank] at Virtua Health.

The COVID-19 vaccination “mega-site” opened at the former Lord & Taylor store in the Moorestown Mall on Jan. 15. Given the high demand for vaccines, more than 300,000 people registered for appointments within just a few days, according to Virtua.

When the Virtua team looked at the appointment database more closely, they detected the problem, officials said.

Apparently, about 70 percent of the people who had created multiple vaccination appointments had done so by mistake, officials said. There was a flaw in the scheduling system that allowed this to happen, but that has since been resolved, officials said.

“We knew there was a lot of confusion and anxiety around the scheduling process, and so we wanted to add a more personal touch,” Virtua Health Chief Information Officer Tom Gordon said. “Our team did not want to cancel people’s duplicate appointments without explanation, but we knew it was essential to remove the erroneous appointments from the schedule to make room for other individuals. After thinking it through, we decided to start making calls.”

So they placed more than 10,400 phone calls, officials said.

“The list seemed overwhelming at first,” Virtua I.T. Specialist Tessa Merry said. “However, as we spoke with each patient, their gratitude and relief was so rewarding. It felt truly wonderful to be a part of something that was bringing so much hope to people in the community we serve.”

“Most of the members of our team do not have patient-facing roles, so it was rewarding to speak with and assist these patients directly,” Virtua Assistant Vice President of Technology Maria Foschi said. “We received so much appreciation; it made it clear we had done the right thing and made a difference.”

The scheduling issue at the Moorestown Mall site is one of a number of scheduling problems residents have faced since vaccine distribution began. An issue at the state level was the opposite of the one the mall saw, when one appointment was being assigned to multiple people.

That issue was identified and worked out with the state's vendor, officials said at the time. Read more here: NJ Statewide Error Causes COVID Vaccine Scheduling Problems

On Monday, a slew of appointment cancellation emails for the Gloucester County site were sent out by mistake. Gloucester County officials quickly had to alert people that no appointments had been canceled. Read more here: Cancellation Emails For NJ ‘Mega-Site’ Sent In Error: Officials

Vaccinations are administered by appointment only; walk-ins cannot be accommodated. Those without confirmed appointments from this specific site will not be granted access.

Appointments are made based on the availability of vaccine and will be restricted to persons eligible under the New Jersey COVID-19 Vaccine Plan, which prioritizes groups based on age, employment, health condition and other factors.

Residents can register online at virtua.org/vaccine to receive an email or text notification as appointments are available. Anyone who previously registered for vaccine notifications through the New Jersey Vaccine Scheduling System (NJVSS) must also register on the Virtua portal in order to make an appointment for the "mega-site" at the Moorestown Mall.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story identified the flaw as being in the state scheduling system. Virtua has clarified that the flaw was in its own scheduling platform and database, and it doesn't use the statewide system. Patch apologizes for the error.