UPDATE: As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, it appeared the website had been changed and the workaround was no longer effective.
Hundreds of people said they were able to book COVID-19 vaccination appointments for their loved ones Wednesday thanks to a workaround published online by a computer programmer.
It all started Wednesday morning when Kory Mathewson‘s family logged on to the Alberta Health Services website to book appointments for Grandma Mufty and Grandpa Bill.
The first appointment was booked after a few tries but getting the second was more difficult.
Like so many other Albertans, once logging onto the website and putting in the postal code, the website stopped working for Mathewson.
Being a computer programmer and developer, Mathewson checked out the coding of the website.
He discovered that he could alter the code and bypass the postal code section, going straight to the patient information form.
By doing so, Mathewson was quickly able to book an appointment.
Upon getting the confirmation, he describes feeling immediate relief.
“It’s exactly that. It’s like: ‘Finally! I don’t have to worry.'”
After double checking the process and simplifying it for a less tech-savvy audience, Mathewson posted the workaround to Twitter in hopes of helping others do the same.
“It was like, ‘OK, how do we make this as easy as possible for people?’ You know, people that don’t know code,” Mathewson told Global News.
Within hours, hundreds of Albertans responded saying the hack had worked for them and they were also able to book appointments for their loved ones.
However, as of 7 p.m. it appeared the website had been changed and the workaround was no longer effective.
In a series of messages on Twitter Wednesday night, AHS said it had “put additional queuing software in place to help manage the volume of users on the AHS COVID-19 immunization booking tool.
“This software will indicate an estimated wait time, and where each individual is in the booking queue to give people the option to continue booking, or to try again later.”
As of 7 p.m., 43,000 eligible seniors 75 and over had booked appointments using the immunization tool and 811 since it went live at 8 a.m., AHS said.
A spokesperson for AHS told Global News that the queueing system has “nothing to do with the workaround” shared on Twitter.
A Twitter user created a video walking through the steps to show others how to do it in a visual way.
“It was a real community effort and all the different people kind of pulled together to make this solution happen,” said Mathewson.
The former Edmontonian believes Alberta Health Services could use the tool to fix the delays for all Albertans.
“In my opinion, this seems like a relatively straightforward fix.”
“I’m more than happy to be connected with the people at AHS to make this happen,” Mathewson said. “Part of the reason that I’m here is to sort of communicate that there are great developers like myself that are ready to help make this possible and make this as frictionless and as easy as possible for all Albertans.”
In a statement, Alberta Health Services confirmed the appointments booked using the workaround were official but that “this is not a permanent solution.”
“The AHS online immunization booking tool continues to experience extremely high volumes and our IT teams are working to find a way to make the process as fast and efficient as possible for everyone.”
In the meantime, Mathewson and his brother Kyle say they’ll continue to help others looking to book appointments.
“I did this for my grandparents but really, this is for all the grandparents of Alberta,” said Mathewson.
“There’s a lot of people that want this and want to be safe. And hopefully this gets them one step closer and takes away that, ‘when is it going to happen?'”
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