Immunisation information has been fast-tracked into My Health Record with the government saying vaccination status is among the top items people want to access online.

Information from the Australian Immunisation Register was incorporated into My Health Record in April and the records of ten million Australians have now been uploaded, the Digital Health Agency says.

It is possible remove the immunisation records from an individual’s My Health Record via privacy controls.

The AMA has welcomed the move, saying easily accessible vaccination information is important for individual wellbeing and as a public health measure.

Having the data available means people can easily check if their vaccinations are up to date, SA branch president and DTA clinical reference lead Dr Chris Moy said.

“Immunisations protect you from transmitting disease to vulnerable people who can’t respond nearly as well to vaccination, including newborn babies people with compromised immune systems or the elderly,” he said in a statement.

“And it reduces the burden on our healthcare system be avoiding preventable diseases such as influenza and measles which might otherwise require hospital care.”

According to the DTA at April there were 22.75 million My Health Records containing almost 2 billion documents.

The DTA says research conducted earlier this year shows people put vaccination information in the top five items they wanted to access through their personal health database.

The other four items were test results, GP notes, prescription records and Medicare information.

Hack attempt

It comes a parliamentary committee heard last month about an attempt to hack into My Health Record.

DTA National Health CIO Ronan O’Connor told the hearing into cyber resilience on May 19 that an unknown attacker tried to hack into the system in 2019-20.

However he said the hacker didn’t get into the system and no personal health information was accessed.

He said the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner had investigated and closed the case, although it was unknown if the hacker was “a teenage kid sitting at home” or a state sponsored actor.