Abstract
Child Health Information Systems (CHISs) are computerised clinical record systems which support a range of health promotion and prevention activities for children, including immunisation and screening. There are a number of different providers of CHISs in England. These systems are managed by child health departments in each local area and not all are interoperable. The establishment of systems which record and maintain accurate information on the entire population is critical to assess vaccination coverage at both national and local levels. These systems should have the flexibility to adapt to a continuously evolving immunisation programme, a mechanism to rapidly feedback to local public health teams for outbreak prevention and control, and the ability to mount a timely response to vaccine safety scares. The ability to schedule (call and recall) immunisation appointments has contributed to improvements in vaccination coverage both in England and elsewhere. While this has been achieved in England through multiple CHISs the development of a single national register would reduce the complexities of maintaining accurate and complete immunisation records for the entire population.
Highlights
The ability to reliably measure vaccine coverage plays an essential role in evaluating the success of a vaccination programme, identifying susceptible populations for further interventions and informing future vaccine policy decisions
Data on vaccines administered in England are currently recorded on two computerised systems – general practitioner (GP) registers and population-based child health information systems (CHISs)
Similar systems operate across the United Kingdom (UK) which enables the production of UK-wide estimates of vaccine coverage
Summary
The ability to reliably measure vaccine coverage plays an essential role in evaluating the success of a vaccination programme, identifying susceptible populations for further interventions and informing future vaccine policy decisions. This paper focuses on how data held on CHISs have been used in England since the late 1980s to assess vaccine coverage in the routine childhood immunisation programme in a timely and accurate manner, and considers the challenges of maintaining accurate collections in light of the planned reorganisation of the English National Health Service. It highlights the lessons learnt from an English perspective which will be of relevance to those European countries planning to implement population-based immunisation registers.
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