Minister backs jab database

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

The Government is setting up a national immunisation database as part of its battle to boost the number of children who receive their jabs against killer diseases.

The Minister of Health, Annette King, revealed the move to the Herald yesterday, although officials say it will take up to three years to implement fully because of tough issues like privacy.

Health specialists have called for a national database for years but under the previous Government were rebuffed by the Health Funding Authority.

It said last year that instead of a national system, clinics in different regions would form their own networks to track children.

Pilot child-health information programmes have been running in several areas, including Otara and a $135,000 scheme in Hamilton and Rotorua.

No national information has been collected on our immunisation rate since 1992 but it is estimated to be 70 per cent, which is lower than some Third World countries.

New Zealanders are reinfecting Pacific Island nations with measles and New Zealand is in the grip of a whooping cough epidemic. Vaccines are offered free to children against those and other diseases.

Mrs King said the national database would be based on claims by doctors and other health-care providers to the Government for subsidies when they treated children. Since June, all claims had to be made electronically using children's national health index (NHI) numbers issued at birth.

"I believe this is a good start in generating accurate information on immunisation, including coverage levels and breakdown by ethnicity."

A Government official said that setting up a national database faced complex issues such as concerns about breaching patient privacy, and how to separate immunisation details from other patient information.

An authority spokesman said the cost was not known. Important decisions were to be made, such as whether it would be a standalone national system or networked regional databases.

Medical director of the Auckland-based Immunisation Advisory Centre Dr Nikki Turner said the national database was urgently needed as a backup while regional and local systems were being developed. They provided more reliable information.

She said the national database would provide figures on our immunisation rate.

The next step would be for health providers to be given access to the database to check on the immunisation status of children who came to them for the first time.

This was not yet possible but the authority was investigating providing access.