Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of the presentation participants will be able to:
Understand how an immunization registry can be used to identify patients whose vaccines were invalid due to improper vaccine storage temperatures.



Background:
The Maine Immunization Program, (MIP) supplies vaccines to over 700 VFC providers. About 200 providers use Maine's immunization registry, ImmPact. The MIP contracts Public Health Nursing to conduct VFC site visits. During a recent VFC site visit, the Public Health Nurse discovered that vaccines were consistently being stored at incorrect temperatures. It quickly became evident that paper searches or billing system searches would not produce the names of the effected patients accurately and in a timely manner.



Setting:
A Pediatric Provider enrolled in ImmPact


Population:
Patients who received sub-optimal vaccines.


Project Description:
Using the temperature log provided by the hospital, a list was compiled of dates where the temperature was recorded as out of range. This list was given to the registry vendor who in turn wrote a script to provide the data needed. ImmPact has a link to VACMAN and because of this, the system identified the lot numbers of the affected vaccines. From this information it was a simple process to identify the patients, the vaccines they received, and the doses administered. This data was given to the provider who compared it to the paper charts and updated ImmPact accordingly. The script was run again and the resulting information provided the hospital with a list of patients to be recalled for revaccination and a list of vaccines to be ordered.


Results/Lessons Learned:
ImmPact proves to be an efficient and accurate way of identifying patients that were administered questionable vaccines. By using ImmPact registry data, 466 children were identified that needed to be revaccinated. Total vaccines that need to be re-administered, 1,134.