Immunization Registries – HLN Consulting, LLC

HLN to Attend AIRA 2019 Annual Meeting and Anniversary Celebration!

by Noam Arzton July 1, 2019

Join HLN at the upcoming American Immunization Registry Association National Meeting on August 13-15, 2019 in Indianapolis, IN. Visit our booth (as a Gold Sponsor) and attend one of the many presentation we will be delivering with our colleagues and on our own! This year AIRA will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary and HLN is proud to be among its founding members.

Presentations will include:

CT Onboarding: Starting All Over Again After a Migration (Tuesday, August 13)
Improving IIS HL7 Web Service Performance in New York City (Tuesday, August 13)
Open Source for Immunization Information Systems (Tuesday, August 13)
IIS of the Future: Where Might All This Be Going (Wednesday, August 14)
Using Business Intelligence to Improve HPV Up-to-Date Rates [Denver Public Health] (Wednesday, August 14)
Methodology for Implementing Health Factors with Immunization Forecasting (Wednesday, August 14)
Procurement Projects: Yes, they really are projects! [CDC IIS Technical Assistance Collaborative] (Wednesday, August 14)
Transitioning and Expanding Rhode Island’s Childhood Algorithm to ICE (Wednesday, August 14)
CT’s IIS Migration Project: The Real Untold Story (Thursday, August 15)

Come join us for all the fun!

HLN Releases Update to its Award Winning Open Source Immunization Forecaster

by Noam Arzton May 31, 2019

On May 31, 2019, HLN released a new version (v1.17.1) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a state-of-the-art open-source software system that provides clinical decision support for immunizations for use in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems.

This version includes:

Improvements to handling of duplicate shots. Duplicate shots typically represent “bad data” that has been passed into the ICE service. For two or more duplicate shots on the same day, ICE will select the vaccine that makes the most sense for the circumstance. See Two Shots, Same Vaccine Group, Same Day Exception Rules for the specifics on how this is handled for each vaccine group.
Logic updates to DTP, HPV, and Zoster vaccine groups. See Release Notes for details.
Pneumococcal interval fix in the Adult Series where (under certain circumstances) the PPSV to PPSV 5 year recommended interval is not being applied when there is a valid PCV shot in between the PPSV shots.

The full software release is available for download at https://cdsframework.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ICE/Downloads. A revised ICE Implementation Guide is also available.

See the feature article about ICE in Open Health News.

HLN Participates in 2019 California Immunization Coalition Summit

by Noam Arzton April 10, 2019

HLN participated in the 2019 California Immunization Coalition Summit held on April 8-9. 2019 in Riverside, CA. For over twelve years, the CIC Summit has brought together partners and colleagues from throughout California and beyond to share ideas, highlight successes, and identify partnerships.

This year HLN’s president, Dr. Noam Arzt, delivered two talks during breakout sessions at the summit:

Several hundred stakeholders from around California attended this important event.

HLN Releases Update to its Award Winning Open Source Immunization Forecaster

by Noam Arzton March 11, 2019

On March 7, 2019, HLN released a new version (v1.16.1) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a state-of-the-art open-source software system that provides clinical decision support for immunizations for use in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems.

This version includes:

DTP Vaccine Group: Added an update to the “Six by Seven” rule to explicitly state that duplicate shots on the same day do not count towards this rule. The intention of this change is to prevent potentially “bad data” that may be passed into the ICE service from affecting the forecast result.
Hib Vaccine Group: Improved handling of duplicate shots administered on the same day. For details, please refer to the Two Shots, Same Vaccine Group, Same Day Exception Rules page.
Minor logic changes to the Meningococcal B, Polio, Rotavirus and Pneumococcal vaccine groups.

HLN recently demonstrated ICE integrated into two EHRs at the HIMSS19 Interoperability Showcase starting in February in Orlando, FL.

The full software release is available for download at https://cdsframework.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ICE/Downloads. A revised ICE Implementation Guide is also available.

See the feature article about ICE in Open Health News.

GAO Report on Patient Matching: Nothing New Under the Sun

by Noam Arzton February 24, 2019

On January 15, 2019 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report to Congress, Health Information Technology: Approaches and Challenges to Electronically Matching Patients’ Records across Providers. This report is in response to mandate in the 21st Century Cures Act for the GAO to study patient matching. To develop this report, GAO reviewed available literature and interviewed more than thirty-five stakeholders (who are not identified) over the course of a year.

I have written several blogs and a feature article on patient matching developments in the US. Similarly, this new GAO report is an excellent retrospective on industry efforts over the past several years. It includes a clear statement of the problem, good discussion on both barriers and progress to date, insights from the stakeholders interviewed on their practical issues, and a review of various initiatives by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) over the past several years. The footnotes alone are worth the read as they contain excellent sources and side comments.