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HLN Team Attends the NACCHO360 Conference

The HLN Consulting team attended the 2022 NACCHO360 Conference held between July 19 – 21, 2022 in Atlanta, GA. NACCHO360 is NACCHO’s annual conference for local health professionals and stakeholders. More than 1,900 local public health professionals and other stakeholders attended this conference, either in Atlanta or virtually. The pandemic has been especially difficult for local public health, and this year’s conference offered an opportunity for attendees to come together in person and celebrate all their hard work.

With its ties to the previous Public Health Informatics, Information Technology and Surveillance (PHIITS) conferences, this year’s NACCHO360 also hosted a variety of surveillance and public health informatics programming. In the Surveillance, Informatics, and Data Systems track, presenters and attendees discussed topics ranging from issues of data quality in immunizations, to how local public health agencies are preparing for FHIR. HIMSS and NACCHO also hosted three excellent Interoperability Showcase demos on birth defects reporting, immunizations, and emergency response use cases. 

In addition to being a Bronze corporate partner and a Bronze sponsor of this year’s conference, HLN delivered two presentations on our immunization activities. Mike Berry and Daryl Chertcoff presented on HLN’s Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE), and Noam Arzt also presented on vaccine credentials, specifically technical and policy challenges in offering consumer access to immunization records. 

You can listen to the HLN presentations via the NACCHO Conference website or the links provided below: 

Clinical Decision Support for COVID-19 Immunizations: State and Local Challenges (Video recording)

• Speaker:  Michael Berry, BSE – Senior Project Manager, HLN Consulting, LLC
• Speaker:  Daryl Chertcoff, BSE – Senior Project Manager, HLN Consulting, LLC

Abstract:

The vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is a major component of the national (and global) pandemic response. The Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) is an open source software system that provides clinical decision support for immunizations. In many jurisdictions, the “raw” vaccination data from IIS is transferred to external systems that are used both to populate public dashboards and often provide digital credentials. The clinical decision support available from the IIS is usually not conveyed along with the vaccination dose data leading to misinterpretations of the validity of current doses and the absence of reliable prediction of future doses.

Vaccine Credentials and Public Health in the US (Video recording)

• Speaker:  Noam H. Arzt, PhD, FHIMSS, FAMIA – President, HLN Consulting, LLC 

Abstract:

Vaccine credentials have become increasingly political in some jurisdictions, and are often misunderstood as a result. This presentation will discuss how standards-based vaccine credentials play a critical role in providing an authoritative, digital record of one’s COVID (and ostensibly any) vaccination status. Public health can play a key role not only in providing critical data that cannot be readily accessed from any other source but in educating the government and its citizens towards its effective use.

HLN had a wonderful time at NACCHO360 and enjoyed seeing everyone in person, especially our local public health partners. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the HLN booth to say hello, we hope to see you all again next year!