Regular vaccination protects the health and wellbeing of staff and prevents the spread of infectious illness to other staff and patients. VaxLink is used by hospitals to track and manage their vaccination programs, and by the Minister to ensure NSW Health’s vaccination compliance.
The Challenge
NSW Health is the largest public health system in Australia, treats 3.7M patients each year and has around 155,000 staff. The risk of infectious illness must be carefully managed through the routine vaccination of clinicians and other staff including those who clean, manage linen, and deliver meals.
While hospitals already kept records of their staff’s immunisation requirements, each hospital did this in a different way. Most of these methods were paper-based and used separate processes. There was no state-wide view of vaccination information and if staff members worked at multiple hospitals or moved to another hospital, existing vaccination records had to be recreated.
NSW Health required a single digital information database to support its vaccination programs and protect its staff and patients from infectious illnesses.
The Plan
To build and implement a single state-wide database to digitally record and manage vaccination information consistently, across all hospitals. VaxLink would also leverage advanced functionality and automation to make vaccination programs easier for hospital staff to administer.
VaxLink was built within NSW Health’s Human Resources and Payroll system, StaffLink, enabling it to manage the routine vaccination of existing staff.
For Phase 1, eHealth NSW implemented VaxLink in those hospitals still using manual, paper-based methods (the majority).
For Phase 2, eHealth NSW transitioned those hospitals with their own online vaccination databases to VaxLink.
The final phase was integrating NSW Health’s Recruitment and Onboarding system (ROB) with VaxLink to manage vaccination checks of people who were onboarding (but not yet employed).
The Outcome
VaxLink was introduced in early 2018 and implemented state-wide by April 2019. As a result, hospitals across NSW Health now have an easily accessible, easy to use, single database from which to manage their vaccination programs.
VaxLink is used to report on state-wide staff vaccination compliance including for COVID-19. It has also significantly reduced the administrative effort required to manage vaccination programs. For example, administrators can now attach immunisation records and pathology results to a staff member’s profile and create automated alerts and updates streamlining a previously cumbersome process.
The Benefits
VaxLink helps to protect both staff and patients from the risk of infectious illness by managing NSW Health’s mandated vaccination programs.
The standardised, state-wide database ensures that:
- NSW Health can easily track and report on staff vaccination compliance
- Vaccination records can be managed for both existing and newly onboarding staff
- Vaccination records follow staff throughout their NSW Health career no matter where they move for work
- It’s easy to use and integrates with other HR systems reducing staff’s administrative burden
- Audits are faster, relying on digital rather than paper-based records.
*Data correct as of March 2022
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