|
In This Issue…
- AIRA's COVID-19 Response Update
- Please Help Us Improve the AIRA Website
- AIRA Has a New Address!
- Register Today! Select AIRA 2020 National Meeting Presentations Webinar Series
- AIRA Election Update
- SmartyStreets Orientation Now Available
- Measurement & Improvement Updates
- AIRA Board Corner: Jeffrey McIntyre, Director
- Messages from Our Supporting Members
- Information Requests
- Steering Committee Updates: July Recap
Check Out the AIRA Events Calendar for Upcoming…
AIRA's COVID-19 Response Update
As National Immunization Awareness Month and back-to-school season kick off, we know our partners and members are working harder than ever to ensure our community members across all ages are vaccinated for routine, flu, and now a highly anticipated COVID-19 vaccine.
In July, AIRA participated in an Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting where critical decisions regarding priority groups and vaccine allocation were evaluated. AIRA also provided feedback for the ACIP COVID-19 Workgroup’s guiding principles and next steps.
Our joint educational webinar with AIM, Immunization in the Time of COVID, reached over 200 attendees, and we look forward to our eight-week webinar series covering hot topics. More information about the upcoming webinar series is available in this article.
AIRA’s COVID-19 Workgroup continues to meet as a platform to leverage community expertise and provide important feedback for the CDC. As a reminder, the purpose of this workgroup is to provide input into CDC’s vaccine monitoring and assessment plans for COVID-19, including CDC’s Vaccine Administration Management System (VAMS), as well as input on communication with related stakeholders. AIRA’s role is to serve as the convener of this workgroup, and CDC will continue to consider the feedback being provided and to share information and decisions as they are finalized. CDC has selected four jurisdictions (California, Indiana, Nevada, and Vermont) to participate in a pilot and is working to schedule demos of VAMS that will be accessible to all states in the coming weeks.
Thank you for the additional work so many of you do to contribute to AIRA’s mission and advancing IIS across the community. While we know everyone is taking on extra responsibilities at work and likely at home, we at AIRA want to express our appreciation to those of you putting in the extra time to contribute to our board, various committees, and workgroups, as well as participating in our events, responding to surveys and info requests, and so much more to guide IIS efforts into the future.
I hope you continue to enjoy the final days of summer, and as always, please reach out to AIRA with ways we can support your work.
Rebecca Coyle, MSEd
Please Help Us Improve the AIRA Website
Would you please help AIRA learn how we can make our website better? We would like to understand how our users navigate the AIRA website to learn. You can help us by taking a short survey by Friday, August 7.
What will I be doing in the survey? We’d like you to complete an online exercise called a “card sort.” In it, you will categorize a list of terms and phrases drawn from pages on the AIRA website. More detailed instructions can be found by following the survey link below.
How long is a session? The survey should take less than 20 minutes to complete.
How do I participate? Click here to get started.
Thank you for your time and for helping us design a better website experience!
AIRA Has a New Address!
Our new address is:
1717 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Suite 1025
Washington, DC 20006
AIRA's membership renewals include the new address. Please notify your finance department and any other colleagues who may need this information.
Register Today! Select AIRA 2020 National Meeting Presentations Webinar Series
AIRA is excited to offer an eight-week webinar series featuring select AIRA 2020 National Meeting presentations on key topics for IIS. We know this is an incredibly challenging and busy time for everyone, and especially those within IIS, so we’ve selected the most relevant topics for IIS given the pandemic. This week's webinar will featured CDC leadership’s vision for advancing IIS. Next week’s webinar will explore how the IZ Gateway project is being used as a key tool in responding to COVID-19. Subsequent sessions will feature IIS successes in the areas of data quality, data use, working with end users, IIS operations, global initiatives, and aligning with national standards. We hope you’ll join us!
Please click on the links to register for each webinar individually:
The webinars will be held on Tuesdays now through September 22, from 3 to 4 p.m. ET. Space is limited, and you must be registered to participate. Sign up today!
AIRA Election Update
AIRA received a record number of board nominations for the upcoming election! Thank you for guiding AIRA's leadership and ensuring a variety of skills and styles are represented.
A ballot was sent to your organization's voting members. Voting members may vote electronically (now through August 12, 2020) or verbally (at AIRA’s annual meeting on August 12, 2020*).
AIRA voting members are being asked to:
The results of this election will be announced to AIRA membership in mid-August. New director terms begin on October 1, 2020 and conclude on September 30, 2022.
*There will be an annual meeting on Wednesday, August 12, 2020, from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET for AIRA voting members who want to vote verbally. More information on the annual meeting is available on the AIRA calendar.
SmartyStreets Orientation Now Available
AIRA is offering an orientation to help you get started with SmartyStreets. During the 60-minute session, participants will:
- Become familiar with the SmartyStreets website
- Learn options available for connecting to SmartyStreets
- Start thinking how SmartyStreets will fit into their infrastructure
- See how to reintegrate cleansed and geocoded addresses back into their IIS
- Be introduced to the Address Cleansing and Geocoding User Group
Since 2017, AIRA and the CDC have offered access to SmartyStreets for all member IIS programs at no cost. The SmartyStreets service provides address validation, standardization, and geocoding at lightning-fast speeds.
Some of the benefits of address cleansing and geocoding for IIS include:
- A reduction in address variability, which can assist with patient-level deduplication
- An improvement in denomination issues (patients in the IIS vs. the Census population)
- Enhanced intervention strategies based on accurately geocoded data
Are you new to SmartyStreets? Is your IIS program enrolled in SmartyStreets but not using it? Every IIS is welcome to set up an orientation.
We’re here to help! Contact Tesha Lucas or Maureen Neary to learn more.
Measurement & Improvement Updates
Thank you to all AART admins! New functionality rolled out last month allows AART admin users to approve their own registrations in AART. We had many registrations this quarter as new reports were released, and most of those registrations were approved within a few days. Thank you to all those admin users!
As a reminder, the steps to approve those who are requesting access to view your program’s or organization’s IIS reports are below.
Once a user has registered from the AART home page and selects the specific IIS they would like access to view, the AART admin for that IIS or organization receives an email notification. The email indicates that the AART admin needs to log into AART to approve the users. Once that AART admin logs in, they will select “settings” in upper right-hand corner. Below the measurement and sharing settings, AART admin users can see active users who have access to their IIS data, pending users, and authorized users who can be reviewed. AART admin users can click “review” next to any user they would like to review. The box above will open, and the AART admin can update the access level. As a reminder, the Admin user access level will be able to set settings and approve users, the staff user access level is typically used for IIS program staff, and the view user access level is typically used for IIS vendors, EHRs, and CDC users. If a user should not be approved, select the access level of “Not approved.” For more information or questions on approving users, please email Kristi Siahaya.
Updated Reports: Quarter 2 2020 Assessment and Validation aggregate reports are published on the AIRA repository. Authorized users can also view updated individual IIS reports by logging into AART.
Need help? AIRA’s technical assistance team is ready to assist you in understanding your AART dashboard and results, in prioritizing work, and in moving toward 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 for more information.
AIRA Board Corner: Jeffrey McIntyre, Director
Title: IIS manager for the Mississippi State Department of Health
What I do: I manage the everyday operation and health of MIIX (the Mississippi IIS) from connectivity to vaccine management.
Organization’s name: Mississippi State Department of Health
Role on the AIRA board: Director
What do you like most about being on the AIRA board? I like assisting a board that is making positive change for the entire immunization community.
What most excites you about the IIS community? Our community is so dynamic that it keeps me energized and never bored!
What is one go-to resource you use to support your IIS work? Aggregate Analysis Reporting Tool (AART)
What is your favorite recent movie, book, or podcast and why? Recursion by Blake Crouch. It’s very thought provoking and intense!
What is your motto? You can’t worry about things you have no control over.
What’s your favorite vacation spot? Anywhere with mountains and streams.
If you had a time machine, what time period would you visit and why? The Renaissance. It was a period of some of the greatest thinkers, artists, and scientists.
Messages from Our Supporting Members
AIRA values the contributions our Supporting Members make to the community. Once a year, we provide Supporting Members at the Platinum and Diamond level an opportunity to share relevant messages with AIRA’s membership.
Envision
In spite of the complications created by COVID-19—working from home, no travel, rapidly changing development priorities—Envision is having a thrilling year as we add four new jurisdictions to our client base and unveil a number of new features and offerings.
COVID-19 vaccine readiness is taking the front seat in many of our development discussions, and our client community is working closely as a team to help set priorities for changes to the WebIZ IIS product suite. As a result, we’re working on some exciting developments, including:
- New upgrades to Mobile WebIZ, the solution for tablet-based, disconnected immunization data collection utilizing barcode scanning technology
- Major advances in patient matching and deduplication
- A new analytics platform based on Microsoft’s Power BI
- Expansion of Flu Pre-Book Phase I to support COVID-19 scenarios
- Rapid enrollment for transient providers administering priority vaccines
- Completed initial work to provide a stand-alone Recommender service based on CDSi logic, data, and tests
- Expanded use of SmartyStreets to validate addresses at rest and in flight
- Rollout of the IZ Gateway to additional jurisdictions
Envision is thankful for the opportunity to work with the IIS community and looks forward to many more years of collaboration and innovation. For more information on our products and services, please contact Steve Murchie.
STChealth
In recent months, STChealth has brought together state public health and pharmacy immunization professionals with the intention of addressing and breaking down barriers that impede vaccination programs. This group, formally called “The Navigators,” has developed a program with a focus on energizing public health and pharmacy partnerships to influence and overcome traditional challenges that limit the ability to provide immunizations in pharmacies. If anyone is interested in joining this group to further our mission, please contact Tiffany Dent to learn more about participating.
STChealth is partnering with State Pharmacy Associations to provide immunization reporting software to pharmacies at no cost in the months leading up to flu season. Increasing bidirectional connections between pharmacies and state immunization Registries is imperative for increasing vaccine coverage rates and closing immunization gaps at the point of care. For more information about partnering with pharmacy associations in your state to increase connections to the state registry, please contact Lara Popovich.
Information Requests
AIRA members have the ability to submit and review information requests—a circulation of questions to and answers from the community. Check out past Information Requests using the “Information Requests” filter in 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 [email protected].
Steering Committee Updates: July Recap
Assessment Steering Committee
- The Assessment Steering Committee meets on a quarterly basis, and the next meeting will be scheduled for September 2020.
Education Steering Committee
- The Education Steering Committee (ESC) did not meet during the month of July, though the updates below were sent out via email.
- The Public Health Informatics Institute provided information on its current and upcoming work.
- The summer edition of SnapShots, focused on pandemic response, is now published in the AIRA repository.
- AIRA is hosting an eight-week webinar series featuring select AIRA 2020 National Meeting presentations.
- The AIRA ESC and the Association of Immunization Managers co-hosted a webinar, Immunization in the Time of COVID. Over 200 people attended! The webinar recording and presentation can be found in the AIRA repository.
HL7 Immunization User Group
- The HL7 Immunization User Group met on July 9 and discussed how IIS can prepare for COVID-19.
- The group discussed the integration of IIS with other public health systems and how the data are shared.
- They also discussed a question from Texas about how to support registry consent.
- Updates were given on the Standards and Interoperability Steering Committee and progress on FHIR.
Joint Development & Implementation Advisory Workgroup
- The Joint Development and Implementation (JDI) Advisory Workgroup met on July 24 and discussed the ongoing implementation of SmartyStreets.
- The workgroup also heard an update on the MQE Project Team. AIRA is going to sunset the administrative coordination of the MQE Project Team going forward, but the tool and related code/materials will continue to be available on AIRA’s GitHub site.
- The JDI Advisory Workgroup discussed the future of JDI and the next steps for revamping the group. Future workgroup meetings will shift to an ad hoc schedule but will remain as a key representative group to inform both IIS community and CDC shared service projects with broad reach across platforms and programs.
- This was the last regularly scheduled meeting of the JDI Advisory Workgroup; future meetings will be scheduled with three- to four-week notice to participants.
Standards & Interoperability Steering Committee
- The Standards and Interoperability Steering Committee (SISC) met on July 8 and discussed the progress of all SISC small groups.
- The committee received an update on trial vaccines for COVID-19 and First Data Bank from CDC.
- The committee also received an update on adjuvant tracking with the COVID-19 vaccine.
- The SISC discussed the COVID-19 vaccine tracking Q&As for IIS awardees and gathered additional questions for submission/referral to others within CDC.
MIROW Steering Committee
NOTE: Steering Committee minutes will capture only action items and decisions made. Recordings of the meetings can be obtained directly upon request by emailing [email protected].
|
