The uptake of Canberra's new online Covid vaccine booking system has been strong, with more than 1600 people booking in to get the jab on Monday and Calvary's vaccine hub booked out until mid-next week.
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The launch of the ACT government's My Digital Health Record portal coincided with the expansion of the territory's vaccine rollout program to over-50s.
It also coincided with access to the Pfizer vaccine being granted to people with a specified medical condition under 50, who would have otherwise received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Of the more than 1600 people who went through the portal on Monday, about 900 successfully signed up and booked online, while about 700 booked through the vaccination phone line instead.
That's because of a design feature of the portal, which means people who haven't visited an ACT public health facility using their current Medicare card details can't immediately sign up online.
An ACT government spokeswoman said on Monday it was important they were instead connected through to a staff member who could make sure their patient record was correctly set up in the system.
Canberrans were only able to use the system to book either a vaccine at Calvary Public Hospital Bruce's new COVID-19 vaccination clinic if they were over 50, or the Garran Surge Centre.
Both clinics are government-run.
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The digital health record portal got off to a bumpy start on Monday morning, with some Canberrans struggling to sign up.
The ACT government's website, which links to the portal, was later updated to make it more clear that people had to have visited a public health facility with their current Medicare card details to sign up right away.
If they had to go through the vaccination phone line to book an appointment instead, they would later be able to use the online system.
The government website was also updated to advise people to include their reference number on their Medicare cards, as well as the 10-digit number on the top of their cards.
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith on Tuesday said those website updates had rectified Canberrans' issues booking their vaccination appointments.
"We have been trialing the system but we need to go back and have a look at what kind of user testing was done and make sure that was done as thoroughly as possible and learn the lesson for next [time]," she said.
"But once the issue came to attention, it was rectified quite quickly and people were able to get online."
The vaccination phone line was dealing with high call volumes on Monday morning, and there were reports again on Tuesday of long wait times.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the government encouraged people to continue to want to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but also to be patient.
She said Commonwealth contractor Aspen Medical had completed the COVID-19 vaccine rollout into the ACT's residential aged care sector.
"There's no huge rush, we have plenty of supplies coming through, so if you're having to wait on the phone line, or you have a bit of difficulty with the online system, please be patient," she said.
"Please be kind to our staff when you make the phone call and if you can wait until tomorrow ... then wait until tomorrow."
The digital health record portal's functionality was for the time being limited to "COVID-19 vaccination activity", but its remaining functionality would come online when it was fully implemented in 2022.
The portal was fast-tracked to help with Canberra's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said it would eventually "provide direct patient access to information and help consumers to make appointments and manage their interaction with ACT government health services".
"It's important for people to understand that [the digital health record] won't create new information or store information anywhere it wouldn't already be," she said.
"All health records will continue to be managed in accordance with the Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997."
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