Monthly Update

September 2019 in Review

www.immregistries.org

In This Issue…

1. Thank You to Our Members and Supporting Members
2. AIRA's New Board of Directors
   
3. AIM | AIRA | CDC Meeting Summary
4. HL7 Workgroup Meeting Update
5. AIRA Attends and Presents at PAHO Data Quality Meeting
6. Quick Bites: Training Advice in 60 Seconds or Less
7. ASTHO 2019 Annual Meeting and Policy Summit
8. Measurement & Improvement Updates
9. Recent Information Requests Added to the AIRA Repository
10. Steering Committee Updates: September Recap

Check Out the AIRA Events Calendar for Upcoming…

• Don't – Miss Deadlines
• AIRA Events
• Webinars
• Committee Meetings
• AIRA Board of Directors Meetings
• Partner Events

Thank You to Our Members and Supporting Members

Over 50 organizations have already become AIRA members and supporting members for the 2019–2020 membership year! A list of all AIRA’s current members can be viewed here. Benefits of the AIRA membership include registration discounts to the AIRA National Meeting, voting benefits, use of an AIRA member logo, receipt of AIRA publications, and access to member-only resources. 

It’s not too late! Join your peers all over the country in becoming a 2019–2020 member. If you have questions about AIRA membership or would like to join as an AIRA member over the phone, please contact Amanda Branham at (202) 552-0189. We would love to hear from you!

AIRA's New Board of Directors

As of October 1, AIRA welcomed three new voting directors and one new non-voting to the board. Each director brings a wide variety of expertise; together they have over 25 years of collective experience in immunization, IIS, and information technology. Please join us in extending a hearty welcome to:

• Mary Woinarowicz, the NDIIS manager for the North Dakota Department of Health
• Melissa Mickle-Hope, the deputy director for the the Citywide Immunization Registry and unit chief for the Provider Quality Assurance Unit, New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
• Jude Alden, the immunization unit manager for the Wyoming Department of Health
• Tiffany Dent, the vice president for the public sector at Scientific Technologies Corporation

These new electees join AIRA’s current board, which is comprised of officers Aaron Bieringer (president), David McCormick (president-elect), Amanda (Mandy) Harris (immediate past president), Dannette Dronenburg (secretary), and Heather Roth (treasurer), voting directors Christy Gray, Nathalie Hartert, and Jeffrey McIntyre, and non-voting director Steve Murchie. A brief biography of each board member including their term is available on the AIRA website.

We appreciate the service of our outgoing directors Kim Salisbury-Keith (immediate past president), Jenne McKibben (secretary), Bridget Ahrens (voting director), and Kevin Dombkowski (non-voting director) for their thoughtful engagement and leadership.

Thank you to all the voting members who participated in this election. We look forward to a productive year together!

AIM | AIRA | CDC In-Person Meeting Summary

Overview

In early September 2019, leadership from AIM, AIRA, and CDC met in Chicago to discuss our collective partnerships. The group opened with introductions, reviewing ground rules for the session, and discussing goals of the meeting. All parties involved are interested in strengthening collaboration and coordination across AIRA, AIM, and CDC. The meeting was focused on driving all three organizations toward the goal of a shared vision and collaborative activities, and the group discussed action steps to make collaboration a reality.

The participants in the meeting were: Lynn Gibbs-Scharf (CDC/NCIRD/ISD/IISSB), Brock Lamont (CDC/NCIRD/ISD/POB), Rebecca Coyle (AIRA), Mary Beth Kurilo (AIRA), Mandy Harris (Nevada, AIRA president), Aaron Bieringer (Minnesota, AIRA president-elect), Jenne McKibben (Oregon, AIRA secretary), Claire Hannan (AIM), Dave McCormick (Indiana, AIM chair), Michele Roberts (Washington, AIM chair-elect).

Topics and discussion

The day-and-a-half meeting focused on the following topics:

• Organizational updates from CDC Program Operations Branch (POB), CDC Immunization Information Systems Support Branch (IISSB), AIM, and AIRA
• Discussion of a shared vision for IIS
• Discussion of the current IIS landscape
• Discussion of roles and action steps to move forward

A summary list of action items was shared with attendees that included suggestions on stronger communication and project ideas within, outside of, and across our three organizations. In particular, the group is interested in convening an immunization program manager/IIS manager meeting at the all-awardee meeting in January.

The meeting concluded with a renewed commitment for ongoing collaboration across AIM, AIRA and CDC. The organizations welcome any input or feedback from AIM and AIRA members and CDC awardees about future considerations regarding areas of collaboration.

HL7 Workgroup Meeting Update

In September the Health Level Seven International (HL7) held its 33rd annual Plenary and Working Group Meeting (WGM) in Atlanta, Georgia. The primary purpose of this meeting was to allow the HL7 working groups the opportunity to meet face-to-face to discuss improvement and creation of interoperability standards. Most of the discussion centered on the latest HL7 standard: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR).

The ever-increasing interest in FHIR was most evident at the FHIR Connectathon held just before the WGM. For two days, 400 software developers attended 40 different working tracks covering subjects such as patient merge, devices, public health, clinical genomics, mobile health and post-acute care. About a third of the group were first-time attendees, and the energy in the room was high as people huddled together in small groups, talking and working on their laptops.

Our immunization community also made progress with FHIR standards by completing a second ballot of the Immunization Decision Support Forecast Implementation Guide. This guide provides a standard for the communication between an IIS and a forecasting system and will allow for standardized testing and integration of forecast engines. At the WGM the guide was socialized with other technical experts and the ballot comments reviewed. Based on the comments, this guide will be improved and submitted for a third ballot in 2020. If you would like to know more about this project or join our working calls, please contact Nathan Bunker at [email protected]. 

We will continue to watch the progress FHIR is making, looking for opportunities to solve new problems with new technology while still supporting the adoption and use of our very successful HL7 v2 standard. 

AIRA Attends and Presents at PAHO Data Quality Meeting

On September 9–10, AIRA staff took part in a meeting hosted by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington, D.C. The objectives of the meeting were:

• To review the different experiences of countries and organizations as well as the report of the first meeting on data analysis using electronic immunization registry (EIR) data and to identify opportunities for potential work
• To continue working towards the generation of a methodological document related to the variety of analyses that countries are developing and that could be developed in the future
• To incorporate the results of this workshop into the practical considerations document for a nominal immunization registry system developed by PAHO.

The meeting was attended by several ministries of health including, among others, Colombia, Argentina, Spain and Uruguay. along with partner organizations like PATH, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Unicef, and the Global Immunization Division at CDC. The discussion focused on data quality indicators, and the automated and manual methods for analyzing EIR data. AIRA looks forward to future partnership opportunities with PAHO and its member organizations. 

Quick Bites: Training Advice in 60 Seconds or Less

We asked Education Steering Committee members to give us 60-seconds worth of advice about training users on IIS.

1-Minute Question: What is one piece of advice you would give about training users on the IIS?

Responses:

• Look at materials that have been created by other states/partners and ask if you can modify to meet your user training needs.
• Train from the big picture (or workflows) down to more detailed information so users gain a better understanding of how the system works and how different functionality in an IIS works together.
• Think about what people need to do, think about why they're not doing it, and give them as little information as is necessary to get from point A to point B. Once you have that, think about how to deliver that information to your audience as close to the action (the workflow) as possible.
• Tailor the training to your audience by demonstrating real-life IIS uses that can benefit them in their roles.
• If training in a test/training environment, make sure that your training docs are updated with each release and have a plan for if the system stops working while you are training or if the place where you are supposed to conduct the training does not have internet…and remain calm. 

ASTHO 2019 Annual Meeting and Policy Summit  

On September 23–25, AIRA staff attended ASTHO’s 2019 Annual Meeting and Policy Summit, a three-day conference hosted by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and held in Bethesda, Maryland. The summit offered a unique gathering of 40 state and territorial health officials, federal public health officers, academic leaders, and leading public health nonprofit agencies. 

Leaders from broad backgrounds presented on top issues in governmental public health. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams shared strategies for building cross-sector health partnerships. Jay Butler, MD, (deputy director for infectious diseases, Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and Melinda Wharton, MD, (director, immunization Services Division, Center for Disease Control and Prevention) discussed ending measles outbreaks and reinforcing confidence in vaccines, with fascinating contributions from Howard Zucker, MD, JD, (commissioner of health for New York state) about his department’s role in responding to local measles outbreaks. John Wiesman, DrPH, MPH (secretary of health, Washington State Department of Health) told the story of improving immunization rates through legislative change in Washington State. And Charles Brown (Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University) shared insight on the connection between location, transportation, and health. 

Measurement & Improvement Updates

Are you measured? Fall is here, and that means the end of Quarter 3 for this calendar year. Measurement and Improvement quarterly Assessment and Validation reports for Transport, Submission and Acknowledgment, and Query and Response are wrapping up.  The second quarter of results for Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Assessment is also now available, and we are seeing great improvements, just in one measurement cycle. Thank you for your hard work in improving CDS! Individual reports for all content areas are being released in AART, the Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool. Additionally, aggregate reports for all content areas will be published in the AIRA repository at the end of October.  Make sure your IIS is included and measured!  AART users can log into AART and view your program’s latest results on the AART dashboard.

Need help, or you aren’t sure if you are measured? AIRA’s technical assistance team is ready to assist you in understanding your AART dashboard and results, prioritizing work, and moving towards better alignment with standards. Do not hesitate to contact us for technical assistance. We can quickly answer a question or dive deeper into topics such as assisting you and your IIS technical development team to better understand issues and make plans to more fully align with standards. Fill out a Technical Assistance Request or contact Kristi Siahaya at [email protected] for more information.  

Recent Information Requests Added to the AIRA Repository

The recent Information Request regarding funding can be found by using the “Information Requests” filter in the AIRA repository. Information Requests are viewable only by individual members and individuals affiliated with member and partner organizations. Just log in to view these valuable resources!  If you have any questions, please email membership coordinator Amanda Branham.

Steering Committee Updates: September Recap