Participants Enthusiastic about
Immunization Registry Conference 2001 in Little Rock

The National Immunization Program sponsored the 2nd Annual Immunization Registry Conference held at the Arkansas Excelsior Hotel, July 9-11, 2001, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The conference drew 350 people from throughout the United States and its territories, Canada, Sweden, and the Republic of Korea.

This year's conference was highlighted by the keynote address by Dr. George Lundberg, Editor-In-Chief of MedScape General Medicine and CBS Healthwatch.com. Other noted speakers addressing conference attendees included Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and one current and one former First Lady of Arkansas: Mrs. Janet McCain Huckabee and Mrs. Betty Bumpers, respectively.

Robb Linkins helped to put much of the Immunization Registry activities in perspective with his presentation "Current Status of Registry Development." There is no doubt that all Registries are aware of the Healthy People 2010 goal for 95% of children under the age of 6 years to be in a registry by 2010. Linkins identified where registries are and activities being taken to meet the goal. Currently, 24% of children under the age of 6 years are in an immunization registry, 33% of public providers are participating, and 15% of private providers are participating.

The CDC has identified 5 areas to work on collectively to help meet the 2010 goal. Those areas are to 1) strengthen partnerships, 2) engage in strategic planning, 3) consider and collect evidence, 4) Focus on Data Quality, and 5) Ensure acceptability. Each area has strategic actions to help move registries along.

Over the two and half days of the conference, four plenary sessions and 24 breakout sessions were conducted. Topics included data quality, utilizing immunization registry data, systems integration, and provider participation. The CDC web page has an overview of the conference and many of these presentations are available there for review.

Next year's registry conference will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is tentatively planned for the end of October.

(Source: Gregory Lanman, CDC, and Katie Reed, CNY Immunization Registry)

August 2001 SnapShots Headlines