Comparisons of immunization records between a community pharmacy, a regional registry, and a health system.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the completeness of immunization records for 6 vaccines between a community pharmacy database, a regional immunization information system (IIS), and a health system's electronic health record (EHR).

METHODS: In a community pharmacy immunization program, 2 pharmacists and a community pharmacy resident performed a needs assessment for 6 vaccines (tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccine for adults or diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis vaccine for children and adolescents, zoster vaccine live, 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine series, and human papillomavirus vaccine) for more than 2400 patients from August 2016 to March 2017. This was a retrospective study to review immunization records for 243 patients. Inclusion criteria included patients from the community pharmacy immunization program who also had at least 1 medication prescribed by an academic health system provider. Immunization records for 6 vaccines were collected from the community pharmacy database, the regional IIS, and the EHR.

RESULTS: A total of 186 of 243 patients (77%) had additional immunization records in the regional IIS or EHR that were not found in the community pharmacy database. Among those 186 patients, 108 (58%) had additional immunization records for 2 or more unique vaccines. In total, 378 additional immunization records were identified for the 6 vaccines. For all 6 vaccines, the regional IIS and EHR possessed more complete immunization records than the community pharmacy database (P < 0.05 for HPV and P < 0.001 for the remaining 5 vaccines).

CONCLUSION: Our study showed that immunization records were more complete in a regional IIS and health system EHR compared with a community pharmacy database. If all 3 sources were used by the pharmacist during the needs assessment, the community pharmacy team would have made fewer vaccine recommendations, which would have reduced the potential for duplicate or inappropriate vaccines.