National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW) and Immunization Registries

As I have stated before on this blog I believe that immunization coalitions have a strong role to play in promoting, raising funds for and helping to populate immunization registries. Precise tracking of immunizations is key to our ability to immunize young children on time in the future.

For these reasons our Coalition has decided to focus a lot of our energy for this year's NIIW activities on the immunization registry in San Francisco. We are sending a letter and an informational flyer to all immunization providers in San Francisco letting them know about the immunization registry, its benefits, and how they can join the growing list of providers using the registry to track immunizations. In addition, we are trying hard to recognize the providers in San Francisco that are currently using and actively entering and checking immunization records via the immunization registry.

How are we doing this? We have purchased travel mugs and printed our logo and appropriate immunization registry information on it (registry help desk phone #, registry website address). Inside each mug will be a $5 Starbucks card. On Monday of next week Coalition members will be going personally to each provider in San Francisco whose staff are utilizing the immunization registry and delivering our mug and gift card to the staff. This will remind them of the important role they are playing in helping improve the tracking and delivery of immunizations in the Bay area. We have found that keeping current registry users satisfied is as important as recruiting new ones. And NIIW is a good time to thank current users and reach out to new ones!