As a parent, having your child's immunization information in LINK helps make sure that your child receives all of the immunizations he or she needs to stay healthy. LINK keeps an up-to-date record of your child's immunizations, which can be helpful to you in many ways:

• If you misplace or lose your child's immunization record (yellow card), your doctor can quickly print a new one for you using LINK. The immunization record (yellow card) is needed to enroll your child in school, day care or camp, so having this record is important.
• If you move or change doctors, your new doctor can look-up your child's immunization record in LINK. This helps your doctor know which shots your child has had and which ones your child still needs. This is especially important if you have lost your child's immunization record (yellow card), because without this information, your child may need to get his or her shots all over again.
• LINK helps your doctor make sure your child gets the right immunizations at the right time. For example, your doctor can use LINK to print reminder postcards to send to you. This helps you and your doctor schedule health care visits for your child.
• LINK can help you and your doctor during emergency events and disasters. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, many parents and doctors lost their immunization records in the flooding. The immunization registries in these areas were able to give new copies of the records to thousands of parents and doctors. Since LINK keeps a copy of immunization records electronically, LINK will be able to provide the same help to parents and doctors if a disaster occurs in our community.