Ensuring Data Quality, New Jersey Statewide QA Initiative

Background:
The New Jersey Immunization Information System is designed to assist healthcare providers to accurately assess their patient's immunization status. Quality assurance is a vital process in ensuring data integrity and increasing provider's utilization of the system. The principles used to implement New Jersey's QA initiative was based on the American Immunization Registry Association's (AIRA), Incoming Data Guidelines.

Setting:
Collaborative partnership with the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Vaccine Preventable Disease program and three regional Maternal and Child Health Consortia.

Population:
The Quality Assurance initiative targets participating NJIIS healthcare providers and enrolled children ages 0-6.

Project Description:
The purpose of the NJIIS-QA initiative is to ensure immunization data submitted to NJIIS from the healthcare provider is accurate and complete when compared to the patient's clinical data documented in the provider's medical record. Records are obtained from the provider at the request of QA staff. The NJIIS immunization records are then compared to the medical records submitted by the provider.

Results/Lessons Learned:
To date, 55,351 shots and 3,675 charts have been reviewed. Results of statewide audits indicate that New Jersey's registry error rate is 2%, while the incompletion rate was higher at 19%. This session will discuss the barriers of quality assurance, staff efforts to collect provider's records, and the challenges facing healthcare providers in correcting the data.