Lowcountry seniors say sign-up help for COVID-19 vaccine is ‘saving us from dying’
Joan Stair, 80, struggles to see electronic screens.
Stair, an 18-year resident of Sun City Hilton Head, has macular degeneration, an eye disease that causes permanent vision loss.
Because of her diagnosis, she thought it would be difficult to book an appointment to get vaccinated against COVID-19 this winter. Many S.C. hospitals use an online federal scheduler called the Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS, that’s been widely criticized as time-consuming, vexing and tedious to use when booking shots.
Retail pharmacies like Kroger and Publix also use online sign-up systems.
But Stair was able to get an April appointment at Coastal Carolina Hospital in just 15 minutes two weeks ago.
“I was very grateful,” she said, “because I figured, welp, I’m just gonna wait.”
Hilton Head Regional Healthcare, which runs the Jasper County hospital, helped Stair out via a new vaccine initiative it launched last month to assist Lowcountry seniors who grapple with technology challenges or don’t have an email address or computer.
“Nobody could register in VAMS,” said Lisa Hensley, the health system’s market director of clinical informatics. Patients “had given up (on) getting the vaccine because the technical aspects were difficult to navigate.”
More than 200 seniors as of Wednesday had received help through the registration initiative, Hensley said in an interview.
The local outreach effort illustrates the lengths to which S.C. health care providers must go to address VAMS’ limitations, as the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control tests a new statewide sign-up system that will soon make it easier for seniors to schedule appointments.
What happened with VAMS?
DHEC has acknowledged that VAMS is a frustrating disappointment. South Carolina opted to use the system, which was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as part of its vaccine rollout. Hospitals around the state place vaccine orders in VAMS, but can also use it as an appointment scheduler.
The system is finicky, and requires an invitation to access.
Medical centers have asked people for a unique email address, before then uploading those into VAMS, which later sends emails to eligible residents with a link to register for appointments.
The state is racing to make the process simpler. It launched a new vaccine call center late last week (866-365-8110) and is now using its own statewide registration portal “on a very small scale.”
“We have begun piloting (the portal) with a few of our health departments,” said Nick Davidson, senior deputy of public health. “You’ll begin to hear more and more about it, but we wanted to start small to make sure we did it well.”
DHEC as of late Tuesday had offered just over 700 vaccine appointments through the portal, Davidson told reporters Wednesday, and 492 slots were already booked.
Operators at the new call center will also be able to schedule appointments over the phone, but will do so only for clinics listed in the state portal, which is limited to a handful of health departments for now, Davidson said.
“I would have to say, probably within the next week, that we will begin to roll this out to other providers,” he said.
In the meantime, with major retail pharmacies also using online schedulers, Hilton Head Regional Healthcare is continuing to assist local seniors.
How does the initiative work?
Anna Maria Tabernik, a resident board member at Sun City, recalled a helpful virtual neighborhood representative meeting last month in which Jeremy Clark, CEO of the health system, and Mark O’Neil, medical committee chair for the Greater Island Council of Hilton Head and Bluffton, spoke about vaccines.
Someone asked whether people could register for an appointment without an email, Tabernik said.
Clark later followed up on the question, and helped organize a Jan. 21 event at Pinckney Hall in which health system employees created Gmail accounts for some Sun City residents and registered those people for vaccinations in VAMS, Hensley and Tabernik said.
The health system also taught Sun City’s computer club how to use VAMS, Hensley said.
The club has since run several volunteer events to create emails for people, Tabernik said, and then contacted Hensley to upload the emails into VAMS. That generates links so the club can continue the booking process right away.
The club also assists residents who already have emails but are still struggling to use VAMS, Tabernik said.
While the events are in-person, Tabernik said residents schedule appointments at Pinckney Hall to stagger arrivals and maintain social distancing.
“When you have people in their late 70s, 80s, 90s, they’re not running around with smartphones, they don’t have laptops, they don’t have iPads, so they can’t even ... some of them don’t have an email, so forget about VAMS for them,” Tabernik said.
The health system’s initiative has since expanded to include events at the Hilton Head Island Senior Center, the Agape Family Life Center in Hardeeville and the Jasper County Council on Aging, Hensley said.
She added that the initiative might continue into mid-February if there’s still a demand for assistance.
“We’ve got the process in place, and we’ll just wait and see if our services are needed beyond next week,” Hensley said.
For Tabernik, of Sun City, the events have been crucial to helping seniors at a high risk of coronavirus complications.
One resident, she noted, had recently said, “You’re saving us from dying.”
