BACKGROUND:
In 1999, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services contracted Automated Health Systems (AHS) to be their order processing vendor. AHS receives and processes vaccine orders, distributes materials to enrolled providers, and processes vaccine usage data submitted by providers to populate VACMAN’s doses administered database. Originally, this system was also to populate the NJ Immunization Information System (NJIIS) but was not utilized. Data was transferred via paper or other means. Development and testing is currently underway to use NJIIS data to provided information about NJ VFC doses administered.

OBJECTIVE:
To share a model wherein specific immunization data collected through the NJIIS will be used to fulfill VFC vaccine accountability requirements. This represents a reversal in the original system intended for data sharing.

METHOD:
Review the current systems and the new infrastructure of core processes and systems conceptually required for populating a VFC doses administered data with registry data.

RESULT:
In development since July of 2003, the new system is currently undergoing testing and is scheduled to pilot February 2004. The goal for VFC providers participating in the registry is they will no longer be required to submit expanded doses administered data on the Eligibility/Vaccine Encounter Record. Instead, the doses administered and VFC eligibility information will be incorporated into the registry and this information will be shared electronically.

CONCLUSION:
For providers, this process eliminates duplicate data reporting and eliminates paperwork. For the NJ VFC program, it eliminates illegible, inaccurate and/or incomplete paper and decreases manual data entry (on average of 31,000 records per month). For the NJIIS program, participation in the registry by VFC providers may increase.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To examine the programmatic disadvantages of using VFC doses administered data to populate a registry and examine the advantages of using registry data for VFC accountability including eligibility screening and doses administered data.