New Immunization Registry: Up and Running!

The North Carolina Immunization Registry (NCIR) is a comprehensive, high-quality, confidential, population-based system that offers numerous benefits to providers and parents. It is a clinical tool that assists immunization staff with vaccine recommendations by utilizing the age, history and contraindications for the patient, as well as the current Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) schedule. The NCIR is very user-friendly and greatly streamlines the fulfillment of federal and state reporting requirements tied to the Universal Childhood Vaccine Distribution Program (UCVDP) by eliminating the manual paper-intensive accountability reports that providers must currently submit.

History/Development of the NCIR

The Division of Public Health (DPH), in partnership with the Division of Information Resource Management (DIRM), established the NCIR. To minimize cost and risk, and maximize chances for success, we brought the Wisconsin Immunization Registry (WIR) to North Carolina for adaptation and installation. The WIR is already a proven success in the public and private provider sectors of that state.

NCIR Statewide Deployment

To date, all of North Carolina’s local health departments, as well as more than 300 private providers are using the registry. The participating providers have been trained to enter historical immunization data, vaccine inventory, and new immunizations. Overall, the response has been very favorable, particularly with regard to ease in learning and using the system.

Thus far, the success of the NCIR has far exceeded expectations. During its years of inception and development, the NCIR project encountered and overcame numerous financial, political and technological barriers. Today, the system has been fully implemented into the offices of more than 25% of UCVDP providers (exceeding the goal of 10%). Recruitment efforts continue, and the Immunization Branch hopes to have at least 75% of its providers using NCIR by the end of 2008.

The NCIR is daily adding champions to what will become NC's safety net in tracking childhood immunization rates and driving up coverage percentages for children by age two. Childcare providers, agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Immunization Branch, the general public, and especially healthcare providers stand to gain numerous immediate and long-term benefits from this registry.