About Aotearoa Immunisation Register (AIR)

The AIR is used to help control the spread of infectious diseases by: 

• providing information about immunisation coverage across the population 
• keeping a record of the vaccinations New Zealanders have received or chosen not to receive.  

Over their lifetime, New Zealanders can receive vaccinations from a range of health providers. At the moment, health providers can’t always get a full picture of a person’s vaccination history to help them and the consumer make the best health decisions. 

The AIR will provide an accurate understanding of population immunisation coverage rates. This means programmes can be planned better to support populations with the lowest immunisation rates.  

The AIR will reduce digital barriers and support the health sector to deliver better immunisation services. 

The AIR will also give New Zealanders a way to record and track immunisations they have received and are entitled to. 

Because immunisation healthcare providers will be able to access immunisation health records, they can make better decisions about whether a person should or should not receive a vaccination.  

We can quickly and efficiently update the health sector about changes to the National Immunisation Schedule. 

The AIR is being co-designed with health providers with a strong emphasis on Māori and Pacific providers and is incorporating learning from their collective experience. The project will be business and health sector led and technology enabled. 

The health sector will have opportunities to use more accurate aggregate-level vaccination data to understand vaccine uptake and make decisions to address inequities in vaccination rates. 

The AIR is being designed to improve equity across providers by removing digital barriers to vaccination. It will support the entire health sector to deliver better immunisation services.  

By providing a better understanding of population vaccination rates, the AIR will allow those planning health services to deliver them in a more equitable way. This will help ensure that groups most at risk have the best access to appropriate vaccinations.   

The AIR is being co-designed with health providers and the vaccinating workforce. Drawing on collective experience and altering the AIR in response to insights means we can make sure the system works for all users. There has been a strong emphasis on engaging with Māori and Pacific health providers who provide vaccinations, and we worked with a small group of Māori providers to pilot the AIR vaccinator portal.  

The AIR is being delivered in phases. During phase one, we focused on improving the capacity of the system to understand population coverage (with an emphasis on influenza). This phase is complete.

We are now completing phase two, building all the key components that are required to support the future state of the AIR, while co-existing with the NIR and Covid Immunisation Register (CIR). We can complete phase three when we are able to disestablish these legacy systems.

During phase four we will look for opportunities for AIR to add additional value to support immunisation services.

The AIR programme has been engaging with immunisation providers, the vaccinating workforce, Te Whatu Ora teams, industry bodies and software vendors.  

We regularly attend a variety of sector hui to share updates. We also run a series of workshops that allows us to collect insights, and test design concepts with end users.   

Pharmacies can commence onboarding to the AIR. The AIR will replace the use of ImmuniseNow from Q1 2023.

Please refer to the AIR toolkit to sign-up.

To further explore what these changes mean for the pharmacy sector please follow the link to watch the recent pharmacy sector webinar here. 

Please email air.engagement@health.govt.nz to start your sign-up journey as a facility manager. 

We will be looking to onboard Māori and Pacific Health providers as a priority group in preparation for the 2023 flu season.

Beginning in February, Māori and Pacific Health providers will be invited to begin signing up to use the AIR.

Please refer to the AIR toolkit to sign-up.

For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact air.engagement@health.govt.nz  

Other parts of the immunisation sector, including community providers, occupational health and public health units, will be invited to start using the AIR from February 2023 in a staged approach, with a priority for Māori and Pacific Providers first.  

Providers who provide flu vaccinations begin signing up to use the AIR in February in preparation for the 2023 flu season. Please refer to the AIR toolkit to sign-up.

The AIR solution is designed to be future proofed through being aligned to the HIRA architecture and leverage existing capability. 

We will start integrating the AIR and other digital health systems during phase four. The AIR sector integration team is looking at different options with software vendor groups to develop the connections. 

Software vendors we are working with include GP patient management systems (PMS), pharmacy dispensing systems, hospital patient administration systems (PAS) and other provider systems.  

For more information on software vendor integration, email air.engagement@health.govt.nz  

We value your thoughts and feedback about AIR.

To contact the AIR Programme, email air.engagement@health.govt.nz