A typical U.S.-born baby gets a hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of birth, receives dozens more throughout childhood and young adulthood, and then winds up in old age with shots that include flu and shingles. Keeping track of all those vaccines over a lifetime is not easy. People move, change physicians, and lose records.
ImmTrac2, Texas’ revised immunization registry, is designed to help people keep their vaccine records in order. Texas residents who sign up can have their immunization records stored for free, allowing physicians, schools, and other authorized people to see which shots a person has received and which ones they’ve missed.
ImmTrac2 follows recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Council on Immunization Practices. The registry, which replaced an older system by the same name in 2017, got another upgrade this year that allows it to interconnect better with electronic health records, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
“We know that immunization schedules have become more complex over time, and the types of [medical] providers who are giving immunizations also have become increasingly varied. So having one place to store immunization data is important for the health of Texans,” said Jennifer Shuford, MD. She is the infectious disease medical officer at DSHS, which runs ImmTrac2.
Reducing the hassle of record-keeping prevents children from being either under- or over-immunized, Dr. Shuford adds. ImmTrac2 also stores patient information on antiviral immunizations and medications that are associated with disaster events.
“Right now, we are in a public health disaster [with COVID-19], and the state is allocating an antiviral – remdesivir” to certain institutions and patients, she said. “We’re working with hospitals around the state to make sure that information gets into our registry.”
You can direct your patients to immtrac.dshs.texas.gov for more information.
Tex Med. 2020;116(8):47
August 2020 Texas Medicine Contents
Texas Medicine Main Page
Last Updated On
January 14, 2021
Originally Published On
July 30, 2020