The legislation, which takes effect within weeks, applies to pregnant women. See how it affects your immunisation services.
Australian vaccine providers will have to report the pregnancy status of all patients being vaccinated under new legislation that takes effect on 1 March.
The Department of Health and Aged Care said the collection of antenatal data for the Australian Immunisation Register was important to ensure “a complete and reliable dataset” was available to enable monitoring of immunisation coverage and administration.
In a statement, DoHAC also said the data collection would also help in monitoring “the effectiveness and safety of maternal vaccines and vaccination programs”, such as the National Immunisation Program (NIP) vaccines, influenza and other respiratory vaccines.
“The legislative changes do not make having a vaccine mandatory. The changes make reporting the administration of vaccinations to the AIR by vaccination providers mandatory,” it said.
From 1 March, vaccination providers can report antenatal information to the AIR through clinical software or the AIR site one of two ways.
The first is a new antenatal indicator that will be rolled out in clinical software throughout 2025. DoHAC advised providers to update to the latest version of their clinical software to ensure they have the latest functionality
If the new antenatal indicator is not yet available in their clinical software, providers must report antenatal information to the AIR using the ‘Antenatal’ option under the ‘Vaccine type’ field.
Since 2021, it has been a legal requirement to record vaccinations in Australia, whereas it was previously optional to enter them into the national register.
The AIR Act stipulates that all vaccination providers are obligated to document the administration of covid, influenza, NIP vaccines, and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccines.
Related
The AIR is a whole-of-life, national immunisation register which records vaccines provided to all Australians, and includes vaccines given under the NIP, through school-based programs, and privately, such as for seasonal influenza or travel. The Register may also include details of vaccines administered outside of Australia.
The register was started in 2016 as an expansion of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, which began in 1996.
Services Australia administers the AIR on behalf of DoHAC and handles information in accordance with the Register Act and the Privacy Act.
Personal information that may be reported to the register includes name, date of birth, contact details, gender, and Indigenous status, as well as your Medicare number (if any) and healthcare identifier (if any).
Other information may also be reported to the register, including details of the vaccination, and information about the person who administered the vaccine.
Individuals can access their immunisation history contained in the AIR through their Medicare Online account through myGov, the Medicare Express Plus app, or their My Health Record.
More information is available here.
