Kansas struggles to fix vaccine reporting issues

Kansas is working to fix its troubled system for sending vaccine data to the federal government, saying glitches caused about 100,000 doses that were given to not be registered as being administered.

The state’s vaccination rate has consistently ranked as among the lowest in the country. As of Feb. 15, 10% of the state’s population had been vaccinated, with 394,523 people receiving at least the first of two required doses, according to state health data.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show the state administering only 67% of the 581,975 doses it has received. The state, however, puts the figure at 68.9% and says it has received 572,275 doses. Both were an improvement from Feb. 12.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said that part of the problem is with the system the state uses to track vaccinations, which is called Kansas WebIZ. Kelly said the vendor is working on technical fixes.

Kelly said the state also is working to make sure providers aren’t holding onto doses, although she said that caused only a small part of the problem.

She said one issue is that when vaccines are transferred from one entity with excess vaccine to another that is in need, the accounting systems show the vaccine is unaccounted for, even if it has been administered. She said that happened with the University of Kansas Health System when it sent some doses to local health officials. Also, if a field is left blank in the system, the CDC doesn’t receive the data, making it appear that the dose hasn’t been administered, Nielsen said.

“Our estimates are that at this point 70% of the quote-unquote unaccounted for doses appear to be doses that we can see have gone into somebody’s arm,” Nielsen said. “But we have to track each of them down.”