Immunization-related Healthcare Interoperability Standards - a Collaboration of the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA), the Public Health Data Standards Consortium and the CDC

Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of the presentation participants will understand how AIRA, PHDSC and the CDC are contributing to major standards organizations. This promotes the interoperability of health information so that IISs can participate in national HIT initiatives.

Background:
The work of the AIRA Data Exchange Standards (DES) committee has positioned IIS to contribute to Standards Development Organizations (SDO). In the last twelve months, the existing AIRA-CDC developed HL7 Implementation Guide for Immunization Registries has found its way into the work of SDOs including:
• Healthcare Services Specification Project (HSSP),
• HL7,
• Object Management Group (OMG), and
• Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) (PHDSC is an active member).

Setting:
HL7 (www.hl7.org)
OMG (www.omg.org)
HSSP (hssp.wikispaces.com)
IHE (www.ihe.net)

Population:
These standards are broadly applicable across U.S. and international populations.

Project Description:
The national healthcare interoperability standards are adopted by HITSP. HITSP adopts standards developed by other SDOs including HL7, IHE and others. To impact national trends, IIS s must work effectively with these SDO groups.
This year, immunization use cases have been considered by HL7 groups:
• HL7 Public Health and Emergency Response (PHER) SIG developed HL7 Version 3 immunization messages, and an immunization domain analysis project
• HL7 Healthcare Services Specification Project (HSSP) developed a Decision Support Service draft profile using vaccine forecast as the use case.
• HSSP also included immunization use cases in its initial submission draft standards for Entity Identification Service (EIS) and Retrieve, Locate and Update Service (RLUS)
• IHE prioritized three new profiles for the 2008 cycle based upon public health use cases, including immunizations.

Results/Lessons Learned:
• IISs have an important contribution to healthcare interoperability SDO processes.
• By collaborating with PHDSC, the contribution of IIS are leveraged with other public health domain standards.
• By being involved, IISs ensure that emerging standards reflect current and planned immunization use cases.