Holy Cross Health in Maryland had to cancel vaccination appointments intended for hospital workers after more than 2,000 ineligible people signed up.
Employees received an email Wednesday containing a link to sign up for appointments using Prepmod, which Holy Cross identified as the system that Maryland is using for vaccine clinic registration.
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A Holy Cross official said the email was intended for "group 1a": their colleagues and active medical staff.
However, one or more workers apparently forwarded the vaccine appointment link to friends and family.
The official said the scheduling system allowed people who are not hospital workers to sign up to receive the vaccine.
"At this point in time, Holy Cross Hospital and Holy Cross Germantown Hospital have only enough vaccine to take care of colleagues and active medical staff," Chief Strategy Officer Kristin Feliciano wrote in an email. "We are only vaccinating colleagues and active medical staff and not the community at large."
The hospital system is working to correct the problem.
It says it's made changes to keep future vaccination communications internal and to prevent non-hospital workers from signing up at this time.
"Emails can be forwarded; we recognize that," Feliciano told News4 on Sunday. "There are ways to secure that with our IT system, and we'll do that as well."
