Southfield, Mich.-based Beaumont Health's online patient portal crashed Jan. 8 after a high volume of patients flooded the website to sign up for COVID-19 vaccines, Detroit Free Press reports.
Beaumont announced late Jan. 7 that it would start vaccinating patients ages 65 and older beginning Jan. 11. Once the portal opened for patients to schedule appointments, the website became overwhelmed with the high number of users and crashed about 9:15 a.m. Jan. 8.
The health system said its IT team is working to address the connectivity issues with myBeaumontChart. Jeffrey Fischgrund, MD, clinical services chief at Beaumont Health, told the Free Press that the health system is unable to manage a phone line with the huge demand for the vaccines and scarce resources available.
"We cannot set up a call line for people to call in for questions," Dr. Fischgrund said. "The best we can do now is through electronic medical records. And as we move on, we're going to have to figure out how do we get to those people that are just not technologically advanced enough to make that work."
Beaumont is urging patients to check its website at beaumont.org/covid-vaccine for updates on the registration process.