ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – The executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange says the state’s online marketplace for health insurance has been improved after days of delays due to a deluge of visitors.

Becca Pearce, the director, said Thursday that the exchange’s information technology vendors found the cause of an unexpected bottleneck in creating accounts on the website overnight, and steps were taken to improve performance.

Pearce also says more than 1,000 users created new accounts after the improvements were made to Maryland Health Connection, the name of the website.

On Thursday, users have continued to create accounts, determine eligibility and compare and chose plans.

To perform routine maintenance, Pearce says the website will be unavailable from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily through the month of October.