DISCREPANCIES in the numbers of vaccines administered by pharmacists and official records highlighted by a National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) report, are believed to be linked to a backlog being experienced by Services Australia.
The NCIRS Review of pharmacist vaccination reporting to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) reported that there was significant under-reporting of vaccines administered by pharmacists (PD 16 Jun).
However, an email sent to vaccine recording platform provider, GuildLink, from Services Australia revealed delays in processing the vaccines to the AIR.
"Due to an overwhelming amount of AIR transmissions being received with the COVID-19 issue, there has been a delay in processing these requests and they are yet to show on the patients' records," the email reported.
"All efforts are being made to reduce the backlog of claims and this should be resolved in the short term."
Pharmacy Guild of Australia Queensland Branch Director, Gerard Benedet, told Pharmacy Daily it was important to "make sure everyone understands that it wasn't a MedAdvisor or GuildLink problem".
"Both of those platforms are doing the right thing," he said.
"We look forward to the Immunisation Register sorting out its backlog and giving people a more accurate picture of the recording of vaccinations across all immunisers, whether that's nurse, doctor or pharmacist.
"I would think the NCIRS was disappointed that the AIR data that they may have been given wasn't totally up to date.
"Unfortunately, its report relied on data that potentially wasn't accurate."
Earlier this week Guild Tasmanian Branch Director, Monique MacKrill, rejected suggestions in the NCIRS report that pharmacists were "dragging the chain" on recording vaccines to the AIR (PD 22 Jun).
"In most states and territories, it is compulsory for pharmacies to record immunisations to AIR.
"The problem has been at the receiving end -- the AIR failing to register submitted data from pharmacy software," she said.
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