MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The City of Memphis announced on Saturday it is going back to its original vaccine sign-up system, “SignUpGenius” and doing away with the statewide system after issues with that site.
Officials had warned there might be some hiccups implementing the new system. But they were concerned the problems could affect vaccine distribution.
“It did not work,” Mayor Jim Strickland said.
The city started using the statewide system on Friday, which is called “VRAS,” but many across Shelby County grew frustrated with the site and had trouble trying to schedule an appointment to their COVID-19 vaccine.
In less than 24 hours, the city decided to ditch the statewide system and revert back to its original website.
“I just want to apologize for people who may have been inconvenienced, who may have been distressed yesterday. We did our level best, we thought the system was going to be optimal,” Doug McGowen, City of Memphis Chief Operating Officer, said.
City of Memphis Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowen explained some of the problems. People who had received their first vaccination didn’t have an initially scheduled appointment couldn’t make a second appointment using VRAS.
“The other thing we heard is that some people went in and started their appointment and came back to it later and the system would not let them re-enter with their existing email address,” McGowen said. “They would have to create a new email address to start over again.”
The frustrations spilled over to the 222-SHOT number which the city was ramping up staffing to be able to handle the extra Memphis calls.
“But nobody expected fully 4,500 calls yesterday from people who couldn’t make the VRAS system work. It kinda overwhelmed, we had some long wait times,” McGowen said.
Since the city took over vaccination efforts McGowen says 82,000 shots have been given. Moving forward, the city is going back to using SignUp Genius.
You can access the website by click here, then select a location and schedule your vaccination.To schedule by phone, you still call 222-SHOT
“For the 7 or 8,000 people who were actually able to schedule an appointment at VRAS, those appointments are still made. Those appointments have transferred over to Signup Genius. We will honor those appointments so just bring your verification like you would,” McGowen said.