Costs of immunization registries - Experiences from the All Kids Count II projects

Background: Immunization registries are tools to improve and sustain immunz ation coverage rates for our nation's preschool children. Developing a mean s of supporting registries over the long term requires information on costs to operate registries. Methods: To determine the annual cost per child to operate immunization reg istries for the 16 All Kids Count (AKC) II projects, some of the most devel oped registry projects in the United States, we projected a national figure for operating registries and compared the figure with a variety of potenti al cost offsets. Results: When the registries are fully operational, the average cost per ch ild for the 16 AKC II projects will be $3.91 (range, $1.60 to $6.23; interq uartile range, $2.91 to $4.81) per year. Conclusions: Based on the AKC study, maintaining a nationwide network of re gistries for children aged 0 to 5 will require an estimated $78.2 million. Cost offsets include not having to manually retrieve records for school ent ry, child care, change in provider, and Health plan Employer Data Informati on Set reports; not having to carry out the National Immunization Survey; a nd prevention of overimmunization. We estimate these offsets at $113.8 mill ion annually.