BACKGROUND:
In the context of participating in the PROW initiative, the New York Citywide Immunization Registry (CIR) has been focusing on improving its integration with most of the immunization program's components.

OBJECTIVE:
To describe how the CIR has integrated with Bureau of Immunization's (BOI) components.

METHOD:
Partnerships were developed between the CIR and most of the units within the BOI. The CIR offered: (1) doses administered reports to the VFC program to improve vaccine accountability and reduce vaccine wastage; (2) lists of providers' population of children to the assessment unit, which measures coverage rates by doing chart reviews; (3) on-line CIR access to the Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention Unit to facilitate surveillance of hepatitis B vaccine and HBIG administration; (4) reports for Medical Provider Liaison showing percent of MMR and Varicella vaccines administered before the first birthday to be used in grand rounds for provider education.

RESULT:
Over the past 2 years, CIR has produced 215 doses-administered reports for VFC site visits. We are currently evaluating the impact of these reports on VFC vaccine ordering. The assessment unit has done reviews of 7,059 charts in 184 providers' offices in 2003 and 2004 to-date using population lists generated by CIR. The Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention Unit is accessing CIR to monitor hepatitis B vaccine and HBIG administration to those children born to HBsAg+ mothers and their household contacts who were either lost to follow-up, unable to produce vaccination cards, or whose providers do not report vaccinations in a timely fashion. BOI's Medical Provider Liaison has visited 34 sites where she used the MMR and Varicella reports from CIR.

CONCLUSION:
An immunization registry can be beneficial to many units within an immunization program.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To understand how the CIR has integrated with some of the components of the immunization program.