The Idaho Immunization Coalition is proud to announce the first Board of Directors!

• Tom Patterson, MD – Chair
• Keith Davis, MD – Vice Chair
• Sherry Iverson, RN – Secretary/Treasurer

Members:

• Tom Rand, MD
• Susan Kim, MD
• Pam Strohfus RN
• Perry Brown, MD
• Teresa Collins, MD
• Gregory Janos, MD

A Message From the IdahoAAP President 

It was dark and stormy in Idaho last summer; we were loosing our state funding for our universal-select (all but private pay for guardisil) immunization program. Forty percent of clinics around the state said they would stop administering all vaccines if they had to carry both state VFC and private pay vaccines.

Through chapter efforts, along with the newly formed Idaho Immunization Coalition, headed by chapter vice president Tom Patterson, and the Idaho Immunization Program, a permanent funding solution was legislatively passed. This would create a funding pool with private insurance paying into the state VFC pool to keep the highly successful universal VFC program going. Also with the above coalition two other important immunization pieces were passed by the legislature:

• Our immunization registry (IRIS) is an opt-out rather than the previous opt-in, which will increase those able to be tracked.
• A permanent standing committee will yearly advise the governor and legislature on ways to improve Idaho immunization rates.

Creighton Hardin
Idaho Chapter President