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Monthly Update

February 2019 in Review

www.immregistries.org

In This Issue…

  1. AIRA Award Nominations Deadline Extended
  2. AART Clinics at AIRA National Meeting – Sign Up Now!
  3. Your Input Needed on New Proposed Rules 
  4. Planning for 2019-2020 – Put AIRA Products to Work
  5. AIRA Welcomes New Administrative Assistant!
  6. AIRA at HIMSS19
  7. AIRA Attends the Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC) Hosted Data Quality Summit
  8. Measurement & Improvement Update
  9. Recent Information Requests Added to the AIRA Repository
  10. Steering Committee Updates: January Recap

Check Out the AIRA Events Calendar for Upcoming…

AIRA Award Nominations Deadline Extended!

We recognize that there are several important deadlines coming up, and we want to give you more time to nominate a jurisdiction or an individual for an AIRA award! The deadline for submitting an AIRA award nomination has been extended to March 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Please take this opportunity to honor the people within the IIS community for their hard work!  

 AART Clinics at AIRA National Meeting – Sign Up Now! 

The AIRA Technical Team will be hosting Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool (AART) clinics at the AIRA National Meeting in Indianapolis in August 2019. AART clinic signups are happening now! When you register to attend the AIRA National Meeting, you will have an opportunity to select a time slot for an AART clinic. Please coordinate with your colleagues to choose an appointment that works best for all of you, as one session will be offered for each IIS (IIS vendor-only sessions offered by request).

If you had a chance to attend an AART clinic at last year’s National Meeting, then you know this is an opportunity to receive one-on-one feedback from AIRA technical staff. The entire IIS team, including your vendor representatives, are encouraged to attend a 30-minute clinic to learn how to use AART assessment reports to inform planning and better understand how to align with national standards. This is also your opportunity to get specific questions answered by AIRA technical staff to help prioritize and move forward with IIS enhancements.

Please contact Tracy Little for more information. 

Your Input Needed on New Proposed Rules 

As you may have heard, ONC and CMS released two new Notices of Proposed Rule Making (NPRMs) for comment in February. The rules were released in pre-published form on Monday, February 11 and published in the Federal Register on Monday, March 4.

ONC’s rule, RIN 0955-AA01, is titled 21st Century Cures Act: Interoperability, Information Blocking, and the ONC Health IT Certification Program. The Federal Register version is now available online, and the pre-published PDF can be found here. The rule focuses on implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act around certification requirements for EHR products, along with what does and does not constitute information blocking.

CMS’s rule, CMS-9115-P, is titled Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Interoperability and Patient Access for Medicare Advantage Organization and Medicare Managed Care Plans, State Medicaid Agencies, CHIP Agencies and CHIP Managed Care Entities, Issuers of Qualified Health Plans in the Federally-facilitated Exchanges and Health Care Providers. The Federal Register version is now available online, and the pre-published PDF can be found here. This proposed rule focuses on improving access to and quality of information for patients, while minimizing reporting burdens.

Both rules have 60-day comment windows, closing on May 3. AIRA has put together a schedule to gather comments:

  • February 13, 2019: Comments (unpublished) shared with the AIRA Community

  • March 4, 2019: Publication in the Federal Register

  • March 29, 2019: Comments requested from AIRA Community due (please send to Brittany Gyer with AIRA)

  • April 8, 2019, 3pm ET: Town Hall to review comments and discuss rule (register here)

  • April 10, 2019: Draft comments shared with AIRA Community

  • April 17, 2019: Edits on draft comments returned to AIRA 

  • April 22, 2019: Final comments shared with AIRA Community to leverage in submitting their own jurisdictional comments 

  • May 3, 2019: All comments due to CMS and ONC

Reminder: Please submit all comments to Brittany Gyer with AIRA. Questions on the NPRMs or the process? Please contact Mary Beth Kurilo. Thank you for ensuring the IIS voice is heard!

Planning for 2019-2020 – Put AIRA Products to Work

In last month’s Update, AIRA provided a summary of CDC’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) meeting and the optional projects available for IIS and Immunization Programs. We know programs are busy writing applications, and as you plan your upcoming activities, don’t forget about the information sources AIRA provides, such as AART and guidance documents. These sources can help inform necessary system enhancements and modifications. The AIRA team is available to assist with interpreting or using Measument and Improvement (M&I) data and information, and AIRA has a Technical Assistance (TA) team that can help with standards interpretation, enhancement planning, prioritization, and more. AIRA has specific projects and community best practice guidance that may require enhancements to your system or workflows, but could provide significant value. Among others, these CDC-supported products include:

  • Address cleansing and geocoding implementation
  • Message Quality Evaluation (MQE) tool adoption
  • Functional standards assessment
  • Onboarding Consensus Recommendations
  • Data Quality Guidance

AIRA’s work responds to the priorities as set by the IIS community, the AIRA Board, and our CDC partners, and we are seeing improvements that are helping EHR-IIS interoperability, standards adoption, and data quality. We hope you will consider including many of the programs and services AIRA offers (sorry, we can’t write your applications)!

Questions on how AIRA can help you or your program in the coming year(s)? Please email [email protected], or contact specific AIRA team members to talk about ideas.

           

AIRA Welcomes New Administrative Assistant!

Kim Rutland joined the AIRA staff in February 2019 as an administrative assistant. Kim has several years’ experience in business and marketing for the telecommunications industry. Most recently she served in administrative and coordinator roles for a nonprofit providing international family services.
Please join us in welcoming Kim to the AIRA team! 

AIRA at HIMSS19

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2019 Annual Conference & Exhibition took place February 11–15, 2019, in Orlando, Florida. Several AIRA staff and board members attended the jam-packed meeting and presented on IIS issues throughout the week. Thank you to Aaron Bieringer, AIRA president-elect, and Dave McCormick, AIRA board director, for making the trip south and representing IIS and immunization program issues!

AIRA presented in four sessions:

  • An informational session/networking opportunity titled “Immunization Information Systems – Bringing Value, Lowering Burden for Providers”
  • A session on AIRA’s Measurement and Improvement Initiative
  • A session in the HIMSS “Spot Theater” to announce the HIMSS Collaborative, a new and innovative partnership between IIS and electronic health records (EHRs) to improve and accelerate interoperability
  • A session with HIMSS and Chickasaw Health Consulting (CHC) on the EHR Immunization Integration Project

In addition to these sessions, AIRA staff and board members were able to hear from experts across health IT discussing the critical importance of interoperability, data analytics, and patient-centered health records. To learn more about HIMSS, visit www.himss.org. To hear more about AIRA’s growing work with HIMSS, contact Mary Beth Kurilo.

AIRA Attends the Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC) Hosted Data Quality Summit

AIRA was invited to attend the Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC) hosted Data Quality Summit on February 12 and 13, 2019, in Phoenix, Arizona. STC staff used the AIRA-developed IIS Data Quality Practices: To Monitor and Evaluate Data at Rest guide to document and provide recommendations for each individual IIS on how to potentially increase their data quality without software enhancements. They used their consortium model to collectively talk through individual awardee settings and configurations within each of their software products and shared best practices among participants. The meeting was well attended by the majority of the STC awardees, and the outcomes included specific IIS documentation of the completeness of the data in the individual IIS systems. It was great seeing the STC consortium in action, while using the recently developed data quality guidance document.

Measurement and Improvement Update

AIRA and the members of MACAW (the Measurement for Assessment and Certification Advisory Workgroup) are planning for the next MACAW in-person meeting, which will be held in April. Additionally, updated Testing and Discovery, Submission/Acknowledgement, and Query/Response reports are available in AART (the Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool) for authorized users.

As a reminder, the first Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Discovery and Assessment reports are delayed due to the unavailability of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tools during the government shutdown. Be on the lookout for these reports in March. They can be found in AART for authorized users. Users will see an updated dashboard and will be able to view results for all four content areas in AART. Admin users are also asked to confirm their participation and sharing settings. More information about participation and sharing settings can be found here.

For questions or comments, please contact Kristi Siahaya.

Recent Information Requests Added to the AIRA Repository

A recent Information Request regarding provider participation has been added to the AIRA repository and can be found by using the “Information Requests” filter. 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: February Recap

Assessment Steering Committee

  • The ASC meets quarterly, and the next meeting was set for March 5, 2019. 

Education Steering Committee

  • The Education Steering Committee met on February 20 and received an update on the CDC Provider IIS Participation Project.
  • Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) provided information on its upcoming in-person meetings and 8 Steps course.
  • The committee was updated on the status of the next edition of SnapShots and 2019 National Meeting planning.
  • The ESC hosted a webinar on Monday, February 11 to introduce the new guide Onboarding Consensus-Based Recommendations. You can view the webinar and presentation slides here.
  • The ESC also began planning for its next webinar and is reviewing content for the Education Survey.
Standards & Interoperability Steering Committee
  • The Standards & Interoperability Steering Committee (SISC) met on February 13 and reviewed the ONC Interop Standards Advisory, 2019 Reference Edition, published online, the AIRA comments on ONC Reducing Provider Burden Report, and the Consolidated HL7 2.5.1 IG guidance now published on the AIRA website.
  • The SISC approved its 2019 workplan and went over the status of previous meeting topics: preferred/contraindicated draft guide and partial/sub-potent administrations.
  • The SISC Technical Workgroup met on February 27 to receive training on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR).
MIROW Steering Committee
  • The Modeling of Immunization Registry Operations Workgroup (MIROW) Steering Committee (SC) met on February 21 and discussed the development of the Business Continuity Guide, the status of the MIROW subgroup projects, and plans for 2019–2020.
  • 2018–19 Business Continuity Guide: Subject matter experts met in Decatur, Georgia, February 6–8 to discuss business continuity and develop content for the guide.
  • Repackaging Workgroup: The SC decided that the repackaged Patient Status guide was ready to proceed to the copy editing and design phase of the project.
  • Common Vocabulary Workgroup: The workgroup will be finalizing the document for a final SC review.
  • Promotional Workgroup: For the AIRA National Meeting, the SC developed three abstracts that went through CDC clearance and were submitted to AIRA. An abstract for the AMIA Symposium is in the process of being developed.

NOTE: Steering Committee minutes will capture only action items and decisions made moving forward. Recordings of the meetings can be sent directly upon request by emailing [email protected].