AIRA Press Room

Welcome to the AIRA Press Room. If you're looking for our latest news releases, news coverage, or more information about AIRA and immunization information systems (IIS), you're in the right place. You can also review our AIRA Press Kit or keep scrolling for the same great information.

On this page you'll find:

Bios
AIRA's Response to COVID-19
Information About AIRA and IIS
Topics We Cover
Where to Go for More Information
Press Releases
AIRA in the News

Media Inquiries

Please review our AIRA Press Kit or keep scrolling for the same great information. To request a media interview, click on the button below.

Request an Interview

Bios

Rebecca Coyle, Executive Director

Rebecca oversees the organization and its role in the development and promotion of tools and best practices to support the implementation of IIS as an essential tool in preventing and controlling vaccine-preventable diseases. Rebecca began her work in the immunization community in 2002. Rebecca has been quoted in USA Today, Politico, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and WIRED, and featured in stories on NBC News. She’s appeared on CNN Newsroom with Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow, The New Republic’s The Politics of Everything podcast, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Most recently, her article on how vaccine status information is accessed and shared was published in USA Today.

Mary Beth Kurilo, Senior Director of Health Informatics

Mary Beth oversees the AIRA Immunization (IZ) Gateway, Immunization Integration Program, and Standards and Analytics teams. She has worked in the IIS community for over a decade. Mary Beth is also a public health consultant with the Public Health Informatics Institute. Mary Beth has been quoted in several publications, including Modern Healthcare magazine, CNN, Bloomberg, USA Today, and Quartz, and has been featured in stories on CNBC.

AIRA's Response to COVID-19

AIRA's role during the COVID-19 vaccine response was to provide support for members

AIRA worked hard to provide support to members during the unprecedented COVID-19 vaccine response. IIS were instrumental in the management and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. AIRA followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's lead when identifying how to best support jurisdictions.

The following are examples of how we provided support to our members:

Served as a centralized forum to unify IIS efforts and developed a shared set of priorities to ensure readiness.
Highlighted the importance of IIS infrastructure and the role IIS could play in the COVID-19 response.
Coordinated and aligned with national partners on policy, infrastructure, and funding.
Developed and disseminated resources, guidance, technical assistance, education, and training.
Assessed how to best support efforts that evaluated and addressed the impact of COVID-19 on routine immunization and vaccination coverage of children and adults.
Supported preparations for the potential for multiple outbreaks and concurrent vaccination campaigns.

Information about AIRA and IIS

Topics We Cover

We want to be as helpful as possible but will only speak to topics within our scope and practice

Here's some topics we're happy to cover:

What IIS are and why they're important.
How IIS are used by health care providers to track immunizations.
The role of IIS in vaccine distribution and rollout (routine immunizations and COVID-19).
How and why vaccine doses administered are tracked in IIS.
Completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of IIS data.
Challenges our members have faced during COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Challenges with onboarding new and non-traditional providers for COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
State laws and policies and the role they play in IIS data collection and use.
Data reporting requirements to CDC.
Data reporting delays and potential impacts.
Equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine.
How IIS, electronic health records, pharmacy systems, and others can connect and share data by supporting standards-based data exchange and interoperability.
The role of IIS in vaccination coverage.
Funding challenges and their impact on the public health response, especially during a pandemic with a large-scale vaccine response.
The impact of COVID-19 vaccines on routine immunizations.
The Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act.
Vaccine credentialing efforts and SMART Health Cards.

Where to Go for More Information

If you didn't find what you needed in this press kit, below are some contacts at our sister organizations

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Contact CDC for information on COVID-19 vaccine response systems, such as VAMS, Tiberius, VTrckS, IZ Gateway, COVID-19 Clearinghouse, etc.; COVID-19 vaccination data; how to interpret COVID-19 vaccination data.

Association of Immunization Managers (AIM)
Contact AIM for information on state and local COVID-19 response work, immunization policy and program development, and allocation of immunization resources.

Association of State and Territorial Health Officers (ASTHO)
Contact ASTHO for health agency media contact information, specific state or territory media inquiries, local perspectives on immunizations and other public health topics, and information on public health policy and state-based public health practice.

Immunize.org
Contact Immunize.org for information on increasing immunization rates; educational materials for health professionals and the public; and safety, efficacy, and use of vaccines.

National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)