AIRA and CIRSET Are Reaching Out
to Practice Management Software Vendors

An important first step toward implementing a national standard for immunization data exchange was taken last month. Following the national Immunization Registry Conference 2001, the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA) and the Committee on Immunization Standards for Electronic Transactions (CIRSET) hosted a meeting with medical practice management software vendors to discuss how best to exchange data between their customers' systems and immunization registries.

Representatives of the immunization registry and the pediatric communities began an important dialogue with software vendors to plan how to implement HL7-based immunization messages. Attendees agreed that the widespread adoption of this standard could significantly ease barriers that providers face, when reporting to and querying registries. Without an accepted standard, registries will continue to have difficulty helping providers extract records from their practice management systems and vendors will continue to be faced with supporting multiple proprietary data exchange schemes.

The meeting was highlighted by presentations from all stakeholder groups. Paula Soper (former president of AIRA) provided vendors with an overview of immunization registries and explained the difficulties registries face in exchanging data with provider data systems. Jeff Weihl, co-chair of CIRSET, presented an overview of how the organization was created to develop, maintain, refine, and advocate for the standard. Susan Abernathy from the National Immunization Program at CDC presented a high level overview of the implementation guide that describes how the HL7-based standard works. Pediatricians Gil Buchanan, M.D., of Arkansas, and Edward Gotlieb, M.D., of Georgia presented provider perspectives, highlighting the need for vendors and registries to work together to address barriers to data exchange. Thanos Tsiolos of Epic Systems provided a software vendor perspective on how CIRSET's implementation guide has simplified their work in designing the method their software uses to exchange data with registries.

Following the presentations, the attendees held an open discussion about the needs of the various stakeholder groups and how to move the initiative forward. AIRA and CIRSET attendees were encouraged that the discussion was both frank and lively and pleased that this important dialogue has begun. Equally encouraging was the apparent commitment from the vendor attendees to continue these discussions. A few offered to participate on the monthly CIRSET conference calls.

Because this effort is important to building successful registries, it is vital that AIRA and CIRSET maintain the momentum gained in Little Rock. Please support your local registry's participation in CIRSET or on AIRA's technical committee. For more information on the standard and the implementation guide, visit www.cdc.gov/nip/registry. To learn more about CIRSET, email jweihl@mphi.org to subscribe to the CIRSET listserve, or look for CIRSET's website, www.cirset.org, which will debut in mid-September.

(Source: Michael Flynn and Jeff Weihl, CIRSET)

August 2001 SnapShots Headlines