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Monday, October 18, 2004 - 10:35 AM
1

Cost savings and effectiveness of immunization registries for improved monthly VFC vaccine accountability and reporting

Diana Bartlett1, Michael L. Washington2, Norman Thurston, and Amanda Bryant1. (1) NIP/ISD/IRSB, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road N.E, MS E-62, Atlanta, GA, USA, (2) National Immunization Program, Centers for Disease Control and, 1600 Clifton Rd., NE, MS E-52, Atlanta, USA


BACKGROUND:
Immunization registries can internally support the management of the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program requirements for clinics and state programs. Assisting with VFC provider quality assurance was deemed a Registry Standard of Excellence according to the Programmatic Registry Operations Workgroup Project (PROW) in 2002.

OBJECTIVE:
Describe potential areas of cost savings to the state VFC program and private providers when using an immunization registry.

METHOD:
Data from 72 VFC private provider clinics along the extended Wasatch front in Utah were collected from September 2003-March 2004 for time associated with state VFC reporting requirements and vaccine doses wasted. State VFC staff was also timed for chart-pulled CASA assessments and VFC report production compared with time associated with doing these tasks assisted by the state immunization information system. Results were weighted to obtain an approximation of the cost for the entire state.

RESULT:
Preliminary analyses estimate that the average costs to the private clinics and state program to manually meet VFC quarterly reporting requirements was $47,955.61 compared to $14.57 when using the immunization registry to produce reports. The average cost to the state VFC program to do a random sampled chart-pulled CASA assessment was $8,374.53 compared to $126.59 for a CASA assessment of the whole clinic population.

CONCLUSION:
VFC vaccine providers that use the VFC reporting options of the registry could save staff time and costs to meet state VFC reporting requirements. State VFC programs could save thousands of dollars if every VFC provider used the registry.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Identify potential areas of cost savings to the state Vaccines for Children program and private providers when using an immunization registry.

[ Recorded presentation ]   Recorded presentation

See more of Costs and Cost Savings to Providers and States when Using Immunization Registries
See more of The 2004 Immunization Registry Conference