BELL COUNTY — Bell County launched its new vaccination scheduling system on Monday, March 15.
The county's new software solution allows increased functionality and more convenience for vaccine recipients.
Appointments for second doses were the first to be made at the Bell County Expo for Thursday, March 25, and Friday, March 26.
The appointments were posted online.
The previous scheduling system from the county only asked if recipients were eligible to be vaccinated and were allowed to book an appointment.
Afterward, they were required to complete a packet that would be brought to the vaccination center on the day of their appointment.
Following their vaccine, the paperwork would manually be put into the state's database.
Including physical paperwork occasionally caused waits at vaccination centers as many recipients did not complete it in advance.
The new system requires recipients to submit all the information in the packet at the time of making an appointment and provides them with a QR code.
The QR code will be scanned once the recipient arrives for their appointment and it will automatically upload their data into the state's database, eliminating the need for paper forms and staff to manually input them.
The new system also includes increased opportunities for communication from the county.
While the county is only allocating 3,900 vaccines a week and residents from other counties can apply which may make getting a reservation difficult due to high demand.