Millions of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the United States.
So, how are officials keeping track of who has received a dose, or two doses?
Rebecca Coyle is the executive director of the American Immunization Registry Association, which works with all of the state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the rollout and utilization of immunization registries.
Coyle said that vaccines are administered and reported through a digital immunization registry.
“The purpose of that is really twofold,” she said on KCBS Radio’s “Ask An Expert.” “One, there’s the public health need. There’s a need to look broadly and target vaccine interventions to help ensure the health of the overall population. And then, there’s also a need for an individual and their provider to know what vaccines they’ve received.”
The goal is to create a comprehensive digital record of all vaccines, Coyle said.
“Then, heaven forbid you step on a nail over the weekend and you have to go to the emergency room or wherever else, they can look up your record and see if you’ve actually had a tetanus shot in the recommended period of time and, potentially, you can avoid receiving an additional dose,” she explained.
The way the current system is, information works its way up from the local level, to the state and then to the federal level, Coyle said.
She said that locally, the initial collection methods depend upon who’s overseeing a vaccination clinic.
Providers then have about 72 hours to enter all of that information from the clinic into the state’s system, Coyle noted.
From there, a state takes the info and sends it to the CDC on a daily basis.
“By the time you look at the CDC dashboard, you’re looking at a couple days old data – I would say around 5 days – but that’s essentially the process that happens there,” Coyle told KCBS Radio.
She said that because the state is responsible for its population, it will have the most comprehensive information out there. By the time it gets to the federal level, the identifying information has been stripped off.
The director added that nationally, about 60 percent of adults in the U.S. are in an immunization registry. Within California, she said, it’s around 70 percent, depending upon the year.
As for the safety of these electronic registries, Coyle said the AIRA takes data security very seriously, and has worked hard to ensure it has the best privacy and security available.
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