Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Chicago's New United Center Aims to Administer 6,000 COVID-19 Vaccinations Each Day
Chicago is bulking up support for coronavirus vaccination efforts by expanding its call center operations. This week the city announced expanded call center capabilities for its United Center mass vaccination site, which is scheduled to open later in the week.
City officials announced they have added more staff to the call center in an effort to aid senior citizens attempting to set up appointments at the new vaccination site. United Center opened March 9, although a one-hour delay in starting appointments led to more than a hundred people lined up on sidewalks waiting for their vaccinations.
Chicago has also expanded capacity at its multilingual call center to aid residents with setting up appointments. That center may be reached at 312-746-4835 and appointments may also be booked online at zocdoc.com/vaccine.
Chicago residents 65 years of age and older are currently eligible to sign up for vaccination appointments at the United Center site. Senior citizens may exclusively schedule appointments at the site until 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 14. After that, appointments will open up to other residents eligible for the vaccine through Phase 1B-Plus of the Illinois vaccination program. That includes any resident over age 16 with a pre-existing medical condition like cancer, diabetes, obesity and other comorbidities.
The United Center is slated to be the largest COVID-19 vaccination center in Illinois. The facility is aiming to reach a goal of 6,000 vaccines per day, and will be open seven days a week for the next eight weeks. It is offering the Pfizer vaccine, and the doses are in addition to doses already being administered by the city and state.
States are taking different scheduling approaches for booking vaccination appointments as call center staff nationally are finding themselves overburdened. In Oregon, seniors 65 and older are eligible for the vaccination. Large clinics at the Oregon Convention Center and Portland International Airport have been set up to serve residents of Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and Columbia counties.
Eligible residents must register through the state's web portal registry. Previously, they were required to wait for a phone call from the state's overworked call center to actually schedule an appointment. The state has offset the workload by sending emails with individual links to qualified residents so they may book their own appointments online without the need for call center staff.
Edited by Maurice Nagle