Parents and carers now have the option to provide online consent for their child to receive their routine school vaccinations.
The Challenge
The well-established school vaccination program has been a successful partnership between NSW Health and education authorities since 2003. Students in Year 7 are offered Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (dTpa) and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, while students in Year 10 are offered Meningococcal ACWY vaccine.
For students to get their free vaccinations at school, parents or carers must provide their consent for each vaccine. In the past, all consent forms were paper-based. This involved multiple handling of forms, manual data entry and other time-consuming tasks.
The Plan
eHealth NSW partnered with Health Protection NSW to deliver the Consent and Records Management for Immunisation (CaRMI) program.
The program worked closely with Public Health Units (PHUs) and Community Health Centres (CHCs) who administer the vaccination program to ensure the solution met their needs. Healthcare stakeholders, parents and carers tested the solution during development.
Since CaRMI launched in early 2023, PHUs and CHCs have been working with education authorities and schools to promote online consent for parents and carers. Promotional materials include translated resources for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
The Outcome
The new digital solution enables parents and carers of Year 7 and 10 students to provide consent online for their child’s routine school vaccinations. Parents and carers can still complete a paper-based consent form if needed.
PHUs and CHCs use the portal to manage the vaccination program, schedule clinics and allocate resources. Vaccination clinic managers have expressed how much easier it is to set up clinics and manage resources. The portal has significantly reduced the amount of manual data entry for staff.
CaRMI also enables real-time recording of vaccination details, resulting in a faster upload to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR). This means better data quality and security and improved access to vaccination records. An offline version of CaRMI is being developed to support school vaccination clinics in remote areas with limited or no mobile connectivity.
The program also complies with Commonwealth requirements for digital records management. Upgrades were made to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) integration and scanner functionality improved at 18 rural and regional PHUs and CHCs.
The Benefits
The CaRMI program makes it easier for parents and carers to provide consent.
Benefits of online consent for parents and carers include:
- Ability to easily update their child's details and provide consent
- Receive SMS notifications when vaccinations are given
- Gain quicker access to their child's vaccination records from the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).
CaRMI streamlines administrative processes and improves the experience for PHU and CHC staff.
Benefits for PHUs and CHCs include:
- Reductions in manual data entry
- Improved ability to schedule clinics and allocate resources online
- Improved functions to manage consent records
- Ability to record vaccination details in real time, supporting a faster upload to the AIR
- Access to automated reporting tools, replacing manual reporting processes.
* Data correct as of June 2023
^ Including catch-up vaccinations from previous years
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