Photographer: Johnny Milano / Bloomberg
Photographer: Johnny Milano / Bloomberg
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Widely used vaccine planning software Microsoft Corp. who has struggled in states such as Iowa and New Jersey is accused of problems that have left some residents of the nation’s capital unable to book meetings.
After three consecutive days of problems with the online registration of the District of Columbia vaccination, the technology company from Redmond, Washington, issued a statement together with the city government, acknowledging “that our efforts have failed” and vowed to solve the problems.
“We understand the frustration of people who tried to use the district’s vaccination appointment portal this week,” they said. “We are committed to addressing technical issues so that the vaccination appointment portal is properly functional and accessible.”
The problems in DC are another black eye for Microsoft, which has strongly presented its software as a way to help implement and schedule the vaccine quickly. Over the past few years, the software giant has increasingly focused on healthcare systems and hospitals as customers for its cloud and artificial intelligence systems, including the launch of an industry-friendly cloud software package last year.
Frustrated users of the system turned to Twitter to express a voice litany of complaints, including Captcha response tests not working, error messages saying the service is unavailable and web pages crashing.
“It was a deeply frustrating experience,” said Adam Beitman, 36, who spent 40 minutes trying to use the website after learning that his asthma had been described as a pre-existing condition. “It is not clear how a website could be so dysfunctional. I don’t even know if I got the appointment or not “.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office sent questions about the specific cause of the problems to the city’s health department, which did not respond to emails and voicemails asking for comments.
‘Very frustrating’
“We know the morning was very frustrating for many people,” says DC Health SAPS on Twitter on Thursday. “We’re working with Microsoft to understand why heavy traffic has kept some eligible people from passing.”
Vincent Gray, a member of the Columbia District Council who chairs the health commission, said he plans to hold a hearing on March 4 to investigate the issues.
The problems stem from errors with the Microsoft system that led at least one state to cancel a contract with the technology company. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said Earlier this month, the state dropped a plan to use Microsoft software to register patients and schedule Covid-19 vaccinations “after learning more about the scale of Microsoft’s solution and analyzing the challenges facing other states.”
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy complained about significant problems with the vaccination scheduling system built by Microsoft, which was affected by problems for weeks after it was released.