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Interfacing a Registry with Indian Health Service Clinics: Case Study in Arizona

BACKGROUND:
Indian Health Services medical centers are not bound by the childhood-immunization reporting requirement per Arizona statute. Still, several IHS sites have been reporting to the Arizona State Immunization Information System (ASIIS), understanding the benefit to their clients of having their immunization records available state-wide. As a whole, however, the IHS network wanted to set up a single solution to sharing their vaccination records.

OBJECTIVE:
ASIIS will receive good-quality IHS records that will help complete partial immunization records, resulting in higher measured coverage rates better reflecting actual immunization coverage levels in Arizona. The IHS patients will be able to receive appropriate immunization care throughout the Arizona.

METHOD:
Based upon regular communications and meetings with numerous state registries, software vendors and other interested parties, agreement settled upon the HL7 message format.

RESULT:
A contractor was hired by the IHS system to create an HL7 interface with the IHS RPMS patient management software system. Since January of 2004 ASIIS has been testing this exchange by receiving and responding to live-data exports from the Whiteriver and Chinle IHS facilities. During this testing period, more than 24,000 patients have been imported into the Arizona registry via this mechanism.

CONCLUSION:
The pilot testing is going well and will soon be extended to more than 20 IHS medical centers in Arizona. Plans are now being made to establish a two-way data sharing interface.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Understand the benefits of using national standards for sending immunization data. Learn about the next steps as Arizona prepares for a two-way data exchange with IHS.

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See more of The 2004 Immunization Registry Conference