wat0n wrote:And you do, this is what the information sheet they gave me when I got my first shot says about immunization recording:
I actually know about the IIS and the type of info there because of my job (I won't elaborate further). If it is not being used to let anyone query this sort of info in real time is due to HIPAA and other privacy laws, that is, due to the fact that society has thus far valued privacy the most (understandable, if anything, yet a pandemic caused by a new disease probably counts as an exceptional time). But that the material possibility exists to do so, well it does exist.
Ok, but please note what it says:
"the vaccination provider may include your vaccination information in your state/local jurisdiction's immunization information system or another designated system."
This is as vague as it can get. Who is in charge of entering the data? "The provider"...
well I am a provider and I just found out this information, I promess you none of my colleagues even knows of this but I'll ask them to see if they do just out of curiosity. And then where? "state" or / "local" or "other designated system". Let's be realistic, the drive-through vaccination site is not jumping hoops to accurately track people.
At best you'd end up with fragmented databases at the state level.
Now the information might be good enough for epidemiological investigations and/or tracking of side effects. But I highly doubt that it would be useful for identifying such patients when they get hospitalized for the purposes of giving them differential care.
There is already one such databases for opiods, using it is cumbersome, time consuming and somtimes we cannot trust the information in the system. When I get a patient with prescribed opiods I need to check the database and even whe I do find the patient, sometimes their prescriptions are not fully updated because they are given at some sort of treatment center that do not report it (e.g. suboxone) and in such cases I have to directly call the place that gives this medication to the patient, wait in the answering machine, talk to a person, adn eventually confirm the information. I cannot describe you how much of a nightmare it would be to have to call a dozen different providers when the person that provided the vaccine to Mr Jon Smith entered John Smith in the database, Or when Juan Ortega Perez (two last names) was entered as Juan Ortega-Perez (a single compound last name) or as Juan O. Perez (Ortega as a middle name). At this point, you might as well just go ahead and implant chips on people so that we can keep track.
My shifts are 12 hours, my census is 20 patients daily. That leave little over 30mins per patient and ideally this 30mins should be enough to do anything and everything this patient's care requires. Meaning, this time should be enough for me to walk to the patient, talk to the patient, review the patient's chart, prior hospitalizations, current labs/imagining, write today's progress note, place my orders, discuss the case with other consultats, the patient's nurse. 30mins.... some people take longer to drink a cup of coffee, just putting and removing the PPE in front of the patient's room takes ~5mins.
Again, it is not practical.