KEYWORDS:
Medicaid, collaboration, registry, two-year-old, Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)
BACKGROUND:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) collaborates with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in conducting a national project to improve the immunization rate of Medicaid two-year-old beneficiaries. Fifty states including D.C. have volunteered for this project. The first group of states are finishing their five year project in 2003.
OBJECTIVE:
1. To have state Medicaid and state Immunization programs collaborate to achieve this goal.
2. State collaborations will identify the immunization rate of the Medicaid two-year-old population.
3. State collaborations will plan and implement strategies to improve the immunization rate of the Medicaid childhood population.
METHOD:
The states have the flexibility to choose their definitions of a two-year-old, Medicaid enrolled, and fully immunized. They identify their method of data collection. The first of the five years is for planning the project. The second year is for reporting their baseline data, target, and interventions to be implemented. The third through fifth years involve re-measuring for improvement.
RESULT:
The results so far are encouraging. The all states are showing improvement in their immunization rates of Medicaid children. All states have indicated that even though they are finishing this GPRA project, they plan to continue this quality improvement measurement.
CONCLUSION:
Measuring the immunization rates of the Medicaid childhood population has proven to be a challenge to accomplish. This GPRA project has raised the states' awareness of the need to measure all quality outcomes for preventive health care - not just for immunizations. This project has been successful as each state has had the flexibility to determine how to implement the project and is measuring success against their baseline measures, not against each other.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. To learn how the immunization registry was used as the data collection method for two states for this GPRA project.
2. To learn how the registry was used as a tool for follow-up and interventions.
Back to Registries as a Tool in Public Health Delivery
Back to The 2003 Immunization Registry Conference (October 27-29, 2003)