Development of an immunization tracking system in a large health maintenance organization. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound.

We have successfully developed a mainframe system for tracking all immunizations administered to enrollees in a large HMO. This system will provide comprehensive immunization records on a population of over 350,000 patients. Data required by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 are locally entered into terminals, and records of immunization are stored in a database. Preliminary results show that data entry times are practical, but that improvement in data quality is needed. This immunization tracking system will be used for research, and as the foundation of an immunization reminder system under development.