Monthly Update

December 2020 in Review

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In This Issue…

  1. AIRA's COVID-19 Response Update
  2. Welcome New Staff to AIRA
  3. An Invitation to Tableau
  4. SmartyStreets Update - A Change to Output Field
  5. Measurement and Improvement Updates
  6. Information Requests
  7. Committee and Workgroup Updates: December Recap
  8. AIRA Job Opportunities
  9. In the News - December 2020

Check Out the AIRA Events Calendar for Upcoming…


AIRA's COVID-19 Response Update

Greetings,

Happy New Year! We made it through 2020, a year for the history books. We hope you were able to take some time to relax and enjoy the holiday season.

As we reflect and set goals for a new year, AIRA plans to continue to support the IIS community throughout the COVID-19 vaccine response and sustain and advance our focus on routine immunization and core AIRA initiatives. AIRA welcomed more than 10 new staff members in 2020 enabling our organization to expand capacity to take on multiple new projects, expand technical assistance (TA) to provide more direct support to jurisdictions, and streamline overall organizational activities.

In December, the AIRA team worked at full speed to continue to help jurisdictions with activities related to the response, including TA for submitting data extracts to the COVID-19 Clearinghouse, onboarding support for the Immunization (IZ) Gateway, and participation in numerous national meetings to address gaps and questions related to vaccine distribution, tracking, and reporting, and to advocate for infrastructure and resource needs. AIRA attended the many Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meetings and responded to more than 40 media requests. AIRA’s new community forums (requires member log in) were created to help facilitate collaboration among awardees on COVID-19 vaccination planning efforts. The forums can be used to discuss anything COVID-19 related, ask questions, and talk to one another. We also continue to offer resources, such as the Supporting Providers in Documenting COVID-19 Vaccine Administration tip-sheet (requires member log in), which will be updated as additional needs surface.

AIRA also submitted comments for the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy draft Vaccines National Strategic Plan 2021–2025, hosted a Tableau training, and is looking forward to launching a Tableau User Group this month (see the Tableau User Group article below) to help jurisdictions use visualization tools to better communicate their data, identify pockets of need, and respond to outbreaks. Lastly, we recently published the December 2020 SnapShots newsletter, in case you missed it.

We look forward to our continued collaboration in 2021. Thank you again for all you do for your communities!

Rebecca Coyle, MSEd
Executive Director


Welcome New Staff to AIRA

We are very excited to introduce four new AIRA staff members!

Anna Halloran joined AIRA in December 2020 as a technical assistance coordinator. Prior to joining AIRA, she spent over a decade in local public health as an epidemiologist and in other roles controlling and preventing communicable diseases. In addition to communicable disease epidemiology, Anna’s background includes surveillance, community health outreach, process improvement, technical writing, research, and health education. Welcome, Anna!

Melissa McClung joined AIRA in December 2020 as Director of the Immunization Integration Program. Her background includes 5 years in software development followed by 20 years at Denver Public Health where her work focused on applying innovative technology to public health. As an epidemiologist and project manager, Melissa led the development and management of a mobile technology solution used to support public health preparedness activities, including mass vaccination and prophylaxis. Melissa was also the project manager for a closed-loop electronic referral project working to establish clinical-community linkages. Welcome, Melissa!

Taylor Payne joined AIRA in November 2020 as an epidemiologist. Prior to this role, she was the Vaccines For Children-Immunization Information System (IIS) Epidemiologist at the Tennessee Department of Health. She also served as the Adolescent Immunization Coordinator where she collaborated with other immunization stakeholders to increase HPV vaccine uptake in Tennessee. She has experience analyzing IIS-based vaccination coverage assessments, developing data-driven reports to inform programmatic process improvement, managing large projects and CDC-led programs, as well as creating impactful Tableau visualizations. Welcome, Taylor!

Yaasmeen Daud is an assistant project manager for the Immunization Integration Program (IIP) Team. She joined AIRA in December 2020. Yaasmeen has a master's degree in health informatics from the University of Cincinnati and over nine years of experience working with electronic health records, such as Epic. She will be responsible for operationalizing components of the IIP by updating project management plans, documenting project activities and progress, coordinating virtual meetings, and providing other administrative support as needed. Welcome, Yaasmeen!


An Invitation to Anyone Interested in Tableau

Are you a current Tableau user? Someone who wants to expand your Tableau skill set? Are you interested in learning Tableau to visualize and communicate your IIS data more effectively?

AIRA will convene the first Tableau User Group on January 26, 2021, at noon ET. Anyone interested in Tableau is encouraged to attend, and all experience levels are welcome!

The goals of this group are to:

  • Create a space for jurisdictions to engage in peer-to-peer sharing
  • Synergize Tableau efforts across jurisdictions
  • Consolidate and disseminate Tableau resources
Register here to receive the invitation for this and upcoming Tableau User Group meetings. If you have any questions about the Tableau User Group, contact Courtnay Londo.

SmartyStreets Update - Changes to Output Field

SmartyStreets recently made a small change to its U.S. Street Address application programming interface (API) data output field.

SmartyStreets will now return a value of “Y” for the active field in the SmartyStreets API output, regardless of United States Postal Service (USPS) data. In the past, the active field was based on the USPS data point known as “no-stat.” SmartyStreets will not remove the active field from the output data it provides as the removal of this output field would cause problems for some end users.

Why the change? USPS can take several months to update the no-stat data point in its database. Some end users who try to deliver something to an address where they currently live reported that the address was listed as Active = N by SmartyStreets. In these cases, the end users would have to wait months for USPS to update the data.

Want to know more about SmartyStreets? Contact Tesha Lucas for more information.


Measurement and Improvement Updates

HL7, Interoperability, and Provider Onboarding
The AIRA Standards and Analytics Team is working on an interoperability training course to help jurisdictions onboard technical IIS staff. We will conduct a pilot training session in January. Contact Assiatou Diallo if you want to participate in the pilot.

Virtual AART Clinics a Success!
The AIRA Standards and Analytics Team conducted Virtual Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool (AART) clinics with 18 jurisdictions between November 3 and December 4, 2020. The clinics were attended by 71 IIS staff and IIS vendors.

A brief evaluation was conducted after each AART clinic and of the 36 participants who completed the survey:

  • Seventy percent strongly agreed that the clinic was useful to their work.
  • Fifty-eight percent strongly agreed that they understood what to do to improve their IIS.
  • Forty-seven percent strongly agreed that they plan to implement the clinic recommendations.

Contact Assiatou Diallo to schedule time to review your AART and COVID-19 readiness report.

Updated Reports
Quarter 4 2020 individual IIS Assessment and Validation reports are available. Log in to AART to find the reports.

NIST Software Tool
AIRA collaborated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on a software tool to help health care providers make better decisions. The Forecasting for Immunization Test Suite (FITS) tool helps ensure providers get correct and up-to-date recommendations about when patients should get vaccines. FITS has been used by AIRA to measure the correctness of immunization recommendation services across a large subset of the nation’s IIS. The improvement in IIS performance has been noticeable. Find more information here.

Have questions or need help? AIRA’s technical assistance team is ready help you understand your AART dashboard and results, prioritize work, and support your movement toward better alignment with standards. Don’t 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 with better understanding issues and making plans to more fully align with standards. Fill out a Technical Assistance Request or contact Kristi Siahaya for more information.


Information Requests

AIRA members can submit and review information requests—a circulation of questions to and answers from the IIS community. Check out the recently published Information Request regarding exemptions by using the “Information Requests” filter in the AIRA repository.

We’ve noticed there have been fewer responses to Information Requests lately. We know many of you are working on COVID-19 vaccine response and planning and/or are covering for others on your team during the pandemic keeping the day-to-day work going. We appreciate your focus on this important work! Responses to Information Requests are a great way to give information and support to your colleagues working on pandemic response and those who continue to keep operations up and running. Please consider taking a few minutes to share information with your peers in the IIS community.

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 [email protected].


Committee and Workgroup Updates: December Recap

Assessment and Education Steering Committees

  • The final Assessment Steering Committee meeting was on December 1.
  • The final Education Steering Committee meeting was on December 16.
  • Stay tuned for more information on upcoming opportunities.
  • Thank you to everyone who has participated in these committees over the years!

HL7 Immunization User Group

  • The HL7 Immunization User Group did not meet in December.
  • The next user group meeting is January 14, 2021, at 2 p.m. ET.

MACAW

  • The Measurement for Assessment and Certification Advisory Workgroup (MACAW) met on December 10.
  • The workgroup was given an overview of the Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool user interface redesign by Fuzzy Math.
  • The workgroup reviewed the new Data Quality content area of Provider Participation.
  • An update was given on the Measurement and Improvement COVID-19 Standards Alignment Report.
  • The next MACAW meeting is January 14, 2021, from noon to 1 p.m. ET.
  • The Modeling of Immunization Registry Operations Workgroup (MIROW) Steering Committee met on December 17.
  • The committee voted to update the two existing MIROW guides on data quality (Data Quality Assurance in IIS: Incoming Data and Data Quality Assurance in Immunization Information Systems: Selected Aspects) and received an update on the status of the project. On December 11, a team of subject matter experts (SMEs) met to kick off the development of this guide. In late January and early February 2021, this group of SMEs will meet for five half-day meetings to develop the guide.
  • The committee began a refinement process to evaluate the offerings of MIROW in relation to the evolution of AIRA and the IIS community’s changing needs and determine the best way to hone and advance development and promotion of uniform operational guidelines for IIS.
  • The steering committee voted to approve its updated charter.
  • The next MIROW meeting is January 21, 2021, from 4 to 5 p.m. ET.

Standards and Interoperability Steering Committee

  • The Standards and Interoperability Steering Committee met on December 9 and received an update on all small-group activity.
  • The committee also heard an update on the COVID-19 Code Set.
  • The committee received an overview of the COVID Vaccination Reporting Specifications (CVRS), which included a summary update of CVRS reporting, tips about submitting the VTrckS Provider PIN, and Rhode Island’s experience as an early implementer of the COVID-19 Clearinghouse application programming interface.
  • The committee also discussed how jurisdictions are collecting employee health data.
  • The next committee meeting is January 13, 2021, from 1 to 2 p.m. ET.

 

NOTE: Meeting minutes will capture only action items and decisions made. Recordings of the meetings can be obtained directly upon request by emailing [email protected].

AIRA Job Opportunities

Are you interested in working for AIRA or in the IIS community? Find current job openings at AIRA and other states/jurisdictions on the Employment Opportunities and Requests for Proposals page on the AIRA website.

There are no openings at this time.

Opportunities for independent contractors

There are no opportunities at this time. To be notified of future contracting opportunities, please sign up here.

Requests for résumés

AIRA has a need to increase its organizational capacity. Positions may be temporary, full-time, part-time, or contractor. Find detailed information here. Share this information with anyone who may be interested and qualified. Send completed application packages, including an AIRA Job Application, to [email protected].


In the News – December 2020