Does Sussex County’s ‘new’ appointment system fix the problem(s)? Not really.

I’m Molly. For nearly two months now, I’ve been researching the vaccine rollout across the tristate area for this newspaper, and a couple of our sister publications over the state borders in Orange County, N.Y., and Pike County, Pa.

Like many of you, I was frustrated when the Sussex County Department of Health’s online registration system crashed a couple of weeks ago, while trying in vain to get an appointment for a 73-year-old diabetic family member. After what felt like a lifetime of refreshing, I refreshed the page once more to find that all the appointments were gone. No dice.

So when I heard that Sussex County had revised its appointment system last week, I figured any change must be an upgrade.

I read the instructions, newly highlighted in yellow on the county’s site: “As a block of openings becomes available, an email blast will go out to everyone who has signed up. You must respond to the email to schedule a time and date for your vaccination. Appointments will be scheduled in order of the receipt of responses to the email blast.”

It didn’t make sense. Whoever responds to an email fastest gets an appointment? What about our high-risk seniors?

A little help

After inquiring about how local seniors will be able to compete for appointments via the new system, county officials — including Commissioner Dawn Fantasia, Administrator Gregory Poff, and a representative from the Division of Health and Human Services — said 200 appointments are being set aside each week for those who have contacted the Department of Senior Services for assistance.

Seniors who are struggling or unable to make an appointment online can get on the Department of Senior Service’s list by calling 973-579-0555

9,000-plus registered. 300 weekly slots.

After some back-and-forth with the county’s spokesperson, I found out that the appointment system isn’t really “new” at all.

It’s the same appointment system. The same one that 84-year-old Franklin resident Robert Worth secured multiple timeslots for, just to be beat out of all of them by others who could fill out registration forms faster.

Now, the link to make an appointment is just being put in the email that goes out to those who registered, instead of being posted publicly on the county’s webpage, in an attempt to reduce traffic to the county’s website.

But I still didn’t think that sending the appointment link to everyone at once was going to fix much on the technical side.

I asked the county last Thursday night if the new system would eliminate the problem where literally thousands were trying to book the same few appointments at the same time.

In an emailed response to my question, Sussex County Administrator Greg Poff said: “The same issues may occur where multiple people are trying to book the same time slot.”

On Friday, I followed up: Would they be sending the link out to only a handful of registrants at a time? For example, the first 1,000 people get the email at 1 p.m., then the next 1,000 get the email at 2 p.m., if appointment slots were still available.

I got an emailed response on Monday morning, this time from the county’s IT department: everyone who registered would be getting the email at the same time.

But, perhaps coincidentally, the county webpage was also updated on Monday, stating that registration for this week had been closed, and that anyone who registers moving forward will be added to the list next week.

As of Monday morning, more than 9,400 eligible people registered with the county to be alerted via email when appointments become available.

The county receives, on average, 500 first-dose vaccines each week. Of those doses, 200 are set aside for the Department of Senior Service’s list, leaving 300 available appointments each week.

That means a little more than 3% of the 9,400 signed up with the county’s system would actually secure an appointment.

The first registration email to more than 9,400 people was sent out on Monday afternoon at 2:21, and within minutes, the scheduling system became unresponsive and unavailable, according to a Facebook post from Commissioner Fantasia. Administrator Poff said all appointment slots were made in those moments that the system was live.

The county is working with its scheduling system vendor, AppointmentPlus, to find a solution.

Improvements

The vaccine shortage isn’t a problem just in Sussex County, or in New Jersey. There’s a nationwide shortage. Demand from eligible people continues to heavily outweigh supply across the tristate area.

And many counties, including Sussex, have been left to figure out appointment systems on their own.

In an email, Poff said the county “never expected to handle its own scheduling/appointment system.”

The assumption was that the county would have access to the state’s vaccine scheduling system (covidvaccine.nj.gov).

“This did not occur, and we have been advancing improvements to our system ever since,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated from the original.