Pharmacies and CAIR                                   

Board of Pharmacy regulations now require reporting to CAIR   

Pharmacists are allowed to administer vaccinations in California. See the Pharmacy Vaccinations FAQs page for more information. 

On August 25, 2016, the State of California Board of Pharmacy released new regulations which mandate that pharmacists report vaccinations they administer to the California Immunization Registry (CAIR). See text of the Board of Pharmacy regulation (PDF) and a recent statement from the Board regarding the new regulation.

Note: Pharmacies will need to enroll in CAIR to submit vaccination information, but pharmacists will need to enroll to view CAIR immunization records.

Promotional Poster

This Pharmacy Flyer poster (PDF) was created to allow pharmacists to communicate directly with their patients about the importance of maintaining their immunization records, including using immunization registries. This artwork can be freely printed for full color display at the pharmacy or distributed electronically. Developed as a joint CDC funded project between Chapman University School of Pharmacy and the Americans an Pharmacists Association.

Visit the Resources for Pharmacies webpage at eziz.org for more resources to support your immunization services.

Disclosure Required

By statute, patient disclosure is required before patient immunization information can be entered or uploaded to CAIR. Please review the CAIR Disclosure/Sharing Policy if you have questions. The CAIR ‘Immunization Notice’ (Disclosure) is available in English, Spanish, and variety of other languages on the CAIR Forms page​. 

There are 2 ways pharmacists can comply with the law:

• Electronic data submission to CAIR
  

For this method, your pharmacy computer system would need to be able to deliver immunization records to CAIR electronically. Because the  CAIR system requires data to be sent in HL7 format, which is typically not the format in which pharmacy computer systems send prescription data to third party vendors, pharmacies would need to have their data converted to HL7 format. Check with your pharmacy computer system vendor to determine if your system can send immunization records to CAIR in HL7 format. For instructions on how to get started, including a list of vendors that might be able to help your pharmacy submit immunization data to CAIR2, open the Pharmacy Electronic Data Submission to CAIR – Where/When/How? page.

• Manual data submission to CAIR

If your pharmacy organization is unable to submit patient immunizations to CAIR electronically, your other option is manual submission. For instructions on how to proceed, open the Pharmacy Manual Data Entry into CAIR – Where/When/How? page.  

Which vaccines do your patients need? Checking patient data in CAIR

Pharmacy staff are encouraged to review patient immunization records in CAIR prior to administering vaccines. Check with your vendor or third party data submitter to find out if your pharmacy system is set up for bidirectional exchange with CAIR. With bidirectional messaging, a pharmacy system would be able to send a query message to CAIR on a patient being seen in the pharmacy and have that patient's immunization history returned to the pharmacy app in real-time for review. If bidirectional messaging isn't available with your pharmacy system, pharmacies can​ get read-only access to CAIR, pharmacies submitting electronically should register first online at the CAIR IZ Portal, then add read-only user accounts by logging into the CAIR Account Update webpage. Training videos on how to login and search for patients are available at the CAIR2 Training page. Note: CAIR Accounts created at the CAIR IZ Portal may take up to a week to be accessible at the CAIR Account Update webpage. ​

​Possible CAIR2 User Roles for Pharmacy Staff

Staff at a pharmacy can request the CAIR User Roles:

Questions? 

For assistance, please email CAIRHelpDesk@cdph.ca.gov, contact your Local CAIR Representative, or phone the CAIR Help Desk at 800-578-7889.​