Costs of developing childhood immunization registries: case studies from four All Kids Count projects

We conducted case studies using structured interviews at four sites to understand the financial resources needed to implement childhood immunization registries. The total cost of planning and implementing a central registry ranged from $2.4 million to almost $7 million over the first five years. In addition, substantial investment by individual or group providers often was required. Registries are large information systems that require considerable investment of developmental resources, regardless of the number of children eventually entered into the system. Given the substantial investment that a registry represents, the realistic anticipation of such resource needs is important to successful planning and implementation.