This appeared a few days ago.
Vaccine records need GP attention: audit
An audit of the national immunisation register has exposed a number of holes in the system including tardy notification by GPs, poor communication and practice software incompatibilities
The audit of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) that covers more than two million children up to the age of seven was carried out by the Australian National Audit Office.
Overall the audit concluded that childhood immunisation data was generally well managed by the department, with accuracy rates in excess of 98%.
However it revealed a number of concerning areas that the authors said needed improvement.
It found one-quarter of immunisation notifications were submitted late by GPs, putting families at risk of having their childcare benefits cancelled because immunisations are deemed overdue after a cut-off of 63 days,
The audit also found simple data entry errors by practice staff such as a wrong date of birth or a misspelled name could lead to duplication or misrecording of a child's immunisation status.
It noted that the Department of Human Services had previously provided field officers to give support and education to general practices in submitting immunisation data correctly.
But these services had been reduced and their future was uncertain following the abolition of Medicare Locals.
Another weakness of the ACIR system was that it assumed GPs and parents would check immunisation statements to verify that the data they had submitted had been incorporated into the records.
However, this expectation was not being communicated to GPs, the audit found.
"Human Services' expectations in respect to maintaining the accuracy of the register are not clearly and consistently communicated to parents and providers, and the department should include a statement to this effect in relevant communication materials, including the Immunisation History Statement sent to parents and the monthly payment summaries sent to providers," it recommended.
More here:
The Departments of Human Services and Health really are letting us all down here - especially as people can low loose payments from Centrelink if the information held by the Departments is inaccurate.
These Departments are meant to manage YOUR information properly and ensure it is accurate - which means having decent information governance and systems which are properly monitored and maintained.
Before you give them any more information via the PCEHR you might want to see is they can actually manage something as simple as an immunisation register. Seems they can’t!
David.
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